The best companies will do something like “20% time”, leaving one day a week or something to work on whatever, which is fantastic for stuff like this. Some of your employees almost certainly have the best ideas, if you just trust them with the space to prove them out.
Great way to get cool stuff like this without unpaid labour.
The place I work says they do this and will claim with a straight face that our sprints are budgeted to allow approximately 20% slack time.
This is of course not even remotely true in any practical sense. I have not received an explanation for how it’s even possible when sprint targets are intentionally set at slightly more than was done in the previous sprint, every sprint.
Haha, you’re not wrong. Ours tend to ebb and flow with whatever urgent priority upper management has set as well, and it tends to take slack alongside our tech debts. Our management is listening and getting better though, I’m hopeful that in a few years we truly will catch up on our tech debts and have all our managed products in good shape at once.
That said, even in that environment, we’ve had some pretty incredible 20% success stories. Some of my own experiments from when I’ve had the time have become proper released features, although I mostly use it to skip the bureaucracy and address my pet peeve tech debts, which isn’t the point but is nice to be able to do. And one of our major internal products, with a large dedicated team and roadmap, began as one developer’s 20% project a few years back.
Maybe it wasn’t considered work for this person? They wanted to try and do something better in their own time. I am not saying they shouldn’t be compensated but doing something of your own will doesn’t have to be work, it can be fun.
In this case, it’s an enthusiastic employee working for his own benefit, being able to play the game on his preferred OS. And thankfully recognized and supported by the company.
I think Discord and Spotify are similar situations. The companies don’t particular care, but a few employees wanted it and made it happen.
I like that they’re passionate and supporting Linux and all, but unpaid work like that should be discouraged, imo.
The best companies will do something like “20% time”, leaving one day a week or something to work on whatever, which is fantastic for stuff like this. Some of your employees almost certainly have the best ideas, if you just trust them with the space to prove them out.
Great way to get cool stuff like this without unpaid labour.
The place I work says they do this and will claim with a straight face that our sprints are budgeted to allow approximately 20% slack time.
This is of course not even remotely true in any practical sense. I have not received an explanation for how it’s even possible when sprint targets are intentionally set at slightly more than was done in the previous sprint, every sprint.
Haha, you’re not wrong. Ours tend to ebb and flow with whatever urgent priority upper management has set as well, and it tends to take slack alongside our tech debts. Our management is listening and getting better though, I’m hopeful that in a few years we truly will catch up on our tech debts and have all our managed products in good shape at once.
That said, even in that environment, we’ve had some pretty incredible 20% success stories. Some of my own experiments from when I’ve had the time have become proper released features, although I mostly use it to skip the bureaucracy and address my pet peeve tech debts, which isn’t the point but is nice to be able to do. And one of our major internal products, with a large dedicated team and roadmap, began as one developer’s 20% project a few years back.
There is a saying (paraphrasing) that sadly is almost never implemented.
“Don’t tell your employees what to do, hire really smart people and listen to their ideas”
Maybe it wasn’t considered work for this person? They wanted to try and do something better in their own time. I am not saying they shouldn’t be compensated but doing something of your own will doesn’t have to be work, it can be fun.
Alongside that, it seems like there’s a good chance that next time, they’ll be the goto for doing this sort of porting.
In this case, it’s an enthusiastic employee working for his own benefit, being able to play the game on his preferred OS. And thankfully recognized and supported by the company.
I think Discord and Spotify are similar situations. The companies don’t particular care, but a few employees wanted it and made it happen.
I think it about shouldn’t be encouraged. Leave it at that. If they felt the need then by all means.