The expectations of the employees from their workplace have been evolving over the years. Where traditionally salary was a primary influencer of employee decisions, the workforce of today expects not just good compensation but a high-growth work environment as well.
Most developers today are excited about working with cutting-edge technology, delivering transformational solutions, and getting abundant opportunities to grow both professionally and personally.
At enreap, we believe that the responsibility of delivering such environments rests with the organization. Their processes, work culture, and hierarchical structures, policies, learning opportunities, leadership, coupled with their vision and mission contribute towards creating an environment that is empowering, energetic, and growth-oriented.
However, we cannot overstate the importance of time management for developers seeking opportunities to work in such an environment.
Here are a few reasons why.
The Role of Time Management in a Developer’s Life
We have noticed that all of our high-performing developers have one skill in common – that of time management. When developers work on complex projects, there is a lot of coordination and collaboration that goes on between teams.
As technology evolves and the world becomes more software-driven, software development also transforms. It becomes as creative as it is technical with many unknowns sprinkled with complicated dependencies. A large part of a developer’s role also involves staying up to date with the technology landscape and continuing to develop in the chosen area of expertise.
Organizing time effectively as such, becomes a critical skill for developers to ensure:
Planning and Organization
Planning and organization are the starting point of great time management. Since you can only manage what you can measure, anticipating and accounting for stakeholder expectations, project scope, and technology needs, identifying dependencies & unknowns along with unforeseen customer demands are important.
Stakeholder demand management often becomes a complex and expensive component of project management. As such, time management involves identifying the time required to complete per item along with the connections between them.
Prioritization
Developers need to master the art of prioritization to thrive in today’s competitive and ever-evolving software development environment. The pace of technology change has accelerated over the past few years and customer demands are also evolving at light speed. Developers as such, need to balance development time with learning needs.
Along with that, there are other dependencies at work such as documentation, solving technical problems, thinking of creative solutions for complex challenges, and learning new information.
Prioritization skills allow developers to map their time and utilize it optimally. It is a good idea to create work routines to accommodate time for development and other peripheral activities such as meetings, stand-ups, client calls, learning programs, training, etc.
At enreap, we place a lot of emphasis on this skill as we feel that it allows developers to manage complex projects with ease without needing to sacrifice their time or other personal pursuits. This skill is also essential to ensure that the developers can spend enough time in skill development whether in cross-functional training or other learning and development programs.
Focus and Attention
The developer’s kitty is almost always full of tasks at hand. As development becomes agile and more distributed, coordinating with other developers, tracking and updating progress, troubleshooting code, managing unexpected urgent tasks & roadblocks, bug fixing…the list is quite exhaustive.
Along with this, there are other aspects of professional life that developers also need to navigate. Building interpersonal relationships, identifying their learning needs, and discovering opportunities be it in projects or technical skill development are some of the many things that successful developers do.
Focus and attention are two important contributors that help developers finish the task at hand. Planning for work, prioritizing it, and then completing each task during the assigned time always keeps the productivity and personal development needle moving.
Clear Communication
Why does a developer need great communication skills for time management? That’s because communication is one of the key ingredients that ensure that the developer’s time is managed well. Communication fosters interpersonal relationships and contributes heavily to smooth project execution.
Managing calls with clients, colleagues, stakeholders, and leadership all need clear communication skills. Communication skills also show up in the documentation. Poorly documented projects impede project velocity in today’s day as change becomes a constant.
Communicating complex requests to peers and main stakeholders can be a challenge in the absence of this skill. Our developers say that explaining complex queries, technology choices, or solution complexity with clarity during client interactions also contributes to time productivity.
Learning how to communicate with clients, getting stakeholder buy-in, problem resolution, and ensuring cross-functional collaboration need clear communication. This ensures that the right message is delivered the first time around and time productivity is not jeopardized.
Delegation
Delegation is another skill that helps developers manage their time. Managing the multiple work demands, balancing that with professional development and learning, and also ensuring a smooth work-life balance demand great delegation skills.
We have seen our developers aim for cross-functional roles. They take on ambitious learning programs to develop their skill sets and are keen to get their hands dirty with juicy projects. They also actively pursue their interests and integrate their work and life seamlessly. They can do this and more because of their superior delegation skills which make them masters of time management.
In Conclusion
It is essential that today, enterprises take cognizance of their employee needs and provide an enabling environment that allows their employees to create thriving professional lives without sacrificing their personal lives.
Attracting and retaining a skilled workforce demands that enterprises create opportunities for growth in the form of robust personal development and learning programs. Client engagement and cross-functional collaboration are other avenues that contribute to professional development and growth.
At enreap, our developers get these opportunities but also get support from leaders, managers, and team leads to master the art of time management that ensures that they are always moving ahead in their career paths.
You may also like
