Milena Mastrasso

Sometimes I have heard about some business that are committed to their projects, so the employees must working overtime to deliver projects on time.

I have heard in some occasions a project manager telling someone that he is not committed with the project because this person doesn’t stay at office more time than expected.

Personally, I think if people often need to do overtime is a clear fault in project management. You know the capacities and capabilities of your team. If a team regularly need to do overtime there are a problem.

I have write some time ago about Scrum. This methodology works over personal commitment of each member on the team. Teams are self-organized. Each member knows his timetable, and commit to do what he is sure he could do in this time.

So, if a person is committed to the project success must do overtime to complete it? Answer is no. You have to be realistic on your commitments, you have to be committed to do this things that are possible.

Is known that any person can works as a robot for to much hours. As the hours runs the ability of concentration diminishes. Its not new. There are some studies that said that making overtime can improve the velocity and quality of the team works in the short-term, but with some days employees start to get tired and people make mistakes and lose incentive to do high quality work. Results gets down! 

Don’t confuse personal commitment with working overtime.

Personal commitment frequently leads to developers working overtime to finish their tasks. However, overtime is not a requirement of personal commitment. You can be really committed with the project, also with your time-box planification.

A personal piece of advice: Hard-working is ok, rest & social life too. Keep balanced.