DHH on TWiT
Today I was listening to the Inside the Net interview with David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails. During the interview, Hansson got into "man hours" on a project versus actual working hours per day. By his definition, a "man hour" is 8 hours of work, which he stated is virtually impossible to accomplish in a 8-hour work day. Now, this is work focused on a specific task, not just time spent at work.
On any given day, it's nearly impossible to spend the total working hours toward one task without interruption. Therefore, he said any project manager that dictated deadlines by 8-hour days was "delusional." I tend to agree with most of this argument; most developers/designers don't get 100% of a working day on a project.
My question for the people out there who work project-based jobs is: how many actual hours of work toward a goal do you average per day? Hansson said about 4-5 hours in an 8-hour day was average. Sound about right?
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