Currently reading a book on Agile Development: ;The Art of Agile Development from O’Reilly by James Shore and Shane Warden.
In Chapter II of the book there is a full description on doing proper eXtreme Programming (in short XP, that’s why the capitalization is there).
An excerpt:
| How to Be Energized | |
|---|---|
| One of the simplest ways to be energized is to take care of
yourself. Go home on time every day. Spend time with family |
Go home on time. |
| and friends and engage in activities that take your mind off
of work. Eat healthy foods, exercise, and get plenty of sleep. While you’re busy with these other things, your brain will turn over the events of the day. You’ll often have new insights in the morning.This isn’t easy. Energized work requires a supportive workplace and home life. It’s also a personal choice; there’s no way to force someone to be energized. However, you can remove roadblocks. |
|
| Supporting Energized Work | |
| One of my favorite techniques as a coach is to remind people
to go home on time. Tired people make mistakes and take shortcuts. |
Stay home when you’re sick.
You risk getting other people sick, too. |
| The resulting errors can end up costing more than
the work is worth. This is particularly true when someone is sick; in addition to doing poor work, she could infect other people. |
|
| Sprinting to the finish line is one thing; sprinting for miles is another. Extended overtime will not solve your schedule problems. In fact, it has serious negative consequences. DeMarco calls extended overtime “an important productivity-reduction technique,” leading to reduced quality, personnel burnout, increased turnover of staff, and ineffective use of time during normal hours [DeMarco 2002] (p. 64). | Extended overtime will not solve your schedule problems |
| If you work overtime one week (whatever “overtime” means in your situation), don’t work overtime again the next week. If I see a team sprinting more than once or twice per quarter, I look for deeper problems | |
It’s clear that the book is packed with common sense. if you do not take the time to deliver quality, you will never get it either.
Must say that in our scrum team we also adhere to those kind of standards. We do see other teams bragging about their weekly overtime, even going along in weekends, but we also see the results. Some teams take on a ‘whatever it takes’ mentality. Developers in those teams can be sick after a few weeks of death marches. So why bother? Just stay fresh and focused during normal work hours and your team will be very productive.
More on this in the book, I highly recommend it: The Art of Agile Development
What are your thoughts on this?