The Concept Of Time In Tech Projects

Sooo…. time does not exist. Right?

There is no time. It is a fictional construct. You cannot show me time. What we perceive as time is actually thoughts. But thoughts are not real. There is no way of bringing back a past experience or experiencing an event in the future right now. They are just thoughts. Thoughts of the past are usually influenced by our emotions. So they are subjective aka. mostly pointless.

We can make predictions about the future but that doesn’t mean that they are right. In fact when it comes to business and especially when working in tech startups. They are almost NEVER right.

There is an old saying in tech that says to get the project time for any tech project you need to take the original estimation use the next higher time factor and multiply by 3.

So here is an example:
Original project time estimation: 30 days
Next higher factor is weeks. So it becomes 30 weeks. Multiplied by 3 = 90 weeks.

In my experience that is usually true for tech company projects. There are simply too many variables and what is called invisible threads (Another path or problem of a project that is only revealed when you reach a certain point in the project)

So what point is there in planning. There is none. It’s basically a meaningless excercise to make people feel secure. And when you approach the deadline it makes people insecure. And all because you didn’t live up to a purely fictional estimation… LOL!

In fact i recommend not to plan or if you have to plan then do it without taking time into account.

I recommend:
Knowing what you want to do and doing it no matter how much time and money it costs.

I know it sounds crazy but think about:

If you follow that piece of advice i am pretty sure a lot of projects would get stopped immediately. Most projects only exist because there was a fictional assumption that said it’s gonna take x amount of time and costs x amount of £££.

It also  means you have to know exactly what you are working on OR accept failure as a possibility from the beginning. But how else are you going to learn? So in fact you even DETACH from the outcome of the project. Hahaha!

So why are you doing the project then at all? Well because of the only acceptable reason: You enjoy the work and it makes you happy -> ALWAYS!

So since i am doing it like this I ALWAYS WORK ON WHAT IS IMPORTANT AND FUN TO ME.

This is then also the reason i earn more money because my heart is in it -> always!

When i work for a company i try and apply these principles as much as possible. If i am a partner in a company or have a say in the company i ALWAYS refuse to plan and i am only working on stuff that we want no matter how much it costs.

The company in return can be sure that i deliver top-notch stuff and it’s always in time … LOL. “In time” get it? .

So instead of talking part in long planning sessions and talks about vision etc. I get stuff done ALL THE TIME. Instead of thinking what is important in 1 year i think about what is important RIGHT NOW and work on it. Baby steps all the way.

A word about company visions:

The funny thing with start-ups in tech is that they change their vision usually a lot over time. With todays development methods, a companies reason of existence changes sometimes within days. So why bother… A vision is like a cage. It confines you to work within a certain frame. So what if you start with a project and end somewhere completely different you thought you would? If it works it works.

So again: visions are not for me. I just judge the project and decide what is important on the fly. Then i work on that because it is important it NEEDS to get done anyway. As i said I ALWAYS work on important stuff that way.

A word about regular meetings:

Same thing… How do you know one week earlier that the meeting is what the company should be doing at the time when the meeting is planned. Well, you don’t! So what’s the point.

When something needs to be said. Do it NOW. Obviously it’s important so why not do it now? If it’s not important enough to get people out of their current activity… well then… I say: don’t bother at all. Write an email or bring it up when it is actually important.

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