Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize
by hesdeadjim on Thursday January 24, 2019 @06:52PM
(#18994243)
It's trivial to never have overtime if you either 1) have no deadlines or 2) have a project so unoriginal you can plan its schedule to the hour.
Show me any project with dynamic requirements that has some sort of deadline, be it time or money running out, and I guarantee there has been some extra work at some point.
Re:Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize
by watwut on Thursday January 24, 2019 @07:10PM
(#18994343)
I am not saying it is trivial. I am saying it is not rewarded. It takes skill and willingness and some companies are not motivated to do it. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to not cruck when you decide you don't do that, period.
Prioritization, negotiation and saying no. Estimates large enough that they have buffers. You don't need on hour predictability. It is precisely when you have dynamic requirements when you are supposed to use tools like that.
After crunch, there are typically many bugs and convoluted code. It just adds to overall time in long term. Pretty much all studies found crunch to not be effective. It is not about achieving more.
I worked at such company too. It had zero to do with need for overtime and and a lot to do with people wanting to work this way. E.g. unwillingness to prioritize, unwillingness to negotiate, wish to be seen like the one who stays late and thus finding work to stay late when not needed. Overtime is not seen as failure of organization, so the organization does not learn how to do it. People staying late are seen as heros and people managing projects so that overtime is not needed are not rewarded, so latter leave and former create culture.
To large extend, people who stay in such companies don't believe it is possible to make deadline without overtime, so they are not even trying.