Yes, we probably were doing something wrong. That's the point of the post: to explain how easy it is to get into a situation where you are making little progress, and our story of getting out of it. I sincerely hope that others will be able to cope better when faced with a similar situation.
It's easier said than done, though. Development takes significant ramp-up time; if you spend 10 hours a day on it, you get much more than 5 times as much done than if you spend 2 hours a day. We already did what we could in terms of distributing workload amongst people to minimize context-switching.
Sometimes I think that the definition of success has less to do with intelligence, hard work, and breaks and more to do with finding a way to do that which is easier said than done.
Didn't mean to be negative in grandparent, just to take advantage of sharing some of the best advice I ever got. There's a lot to be said for making progress every day, no matter how hard it is.
> Development takes significant ramp-up time; if you spend 10 hours a day on it, you get much more than 5 times as much done than if you spend 2 hours a day.
So true. Having one hour for coding is next to worthless. Perhaps the fabled 'zone' for programmers is merely a long enough stretch of uninterrupted time to immerse oneself.
Joel Spolsky used to write a lot on this topic, one of his key recommendations were private offices with a door that closes for developers. Lately I have seen little to indicate that the industry (startups or established companies) are moving in that direction. What are your experiences? Do you know many companies implementing this? Would you? Given that avoiding disturbances is so critical to developer productivity it seems like a no-brainer, I just don't seem to see it in the field.
EDIT: Here's one of Joels pieces on the topic (great read):
He actually answers my question by saying that no VCs would allow a company to squander their money on something so lavish. Wonder if people here agree with that assessment today.
It's easier said than done, though. Development takes significant ramp-up time; if you spend 10 hours a day on it, you get much more than 5 times as much done than if you spend 2 hours a day. We already did what we could in terms of distributing workload amongst people to minimize context-switching.