> It's disheartening that there is a whole group of people - developers and managers alike - who do not understand or see the value in exploration as part of the process.

To steelman, because, as Frank is sending ethernet packets, we're stuck picking up the slack, doing things that are part of the job description, that are needed by the org as a whole. Why doesn't he just innovate in the actual problem we're working on, since there's a near infinity backlog?

I think, ideally, everyone is given exploration time, but that requires a manager that can strictly defend it, even when upper management is made aware of it and inevitably says "we need <project> done sooner". It's also a problem when other managers become aware of it with "You're allowing that team to hire more to compensate for the "lost time"? We need those people!". It really needs to be an org level thing, which even Google gave up on [1].

"Unethical" solution: Pad your development time to include some of it.

[1] https://hrzone.com/why-did-google-abandon-20-time-for-innova...