Time aspect importance in software development

Organization size and time importance

• In smaller organizations, time is often treated as a critical resource and managed more strictly. Small companies cannot afford idle time, unpaid work, or activities that do not produce tangible benefits, create value, or contribute directly to business outcomes. This is especially true in the world of freelancing (single-person company), where individuals cannot afford idle time, non-billable work, or tasks that do not generate value or contribute directly to their income. Evidence / Examples, that time is an important aspect:
  • Freelancers often avoid unnecessary meetings, as these do not directly generate value.
  • Clear, well-defined requirements are preferred, allowing immediate work on value-generating tasks without time wasted on analysis or unclear goals.
  • Time is directly linked to income, so every hour must produce measurable output.
  • Long lists of client (non-functional, technical) requirements are often avoided, as they require significant time for analysis and clarification, and may not directly lead to immediate value creation.
  • Even exploratory questions, pre-development meetings about these potential requirements are often avoided.
  • They push directly toward immediate development, prioritizing quick implementation over prolonged analysis or discussion.
  • Often suggest black-box development, where they do as best they can, but works, skipping technical and non-functional requirements (trying to avoid these). Delivering functional results based on their own decisions, while skipping some technical or non-functional requirements.
  • Unnecessary work is avoided, focusing only on tasks that generate value and contribute directly to outcomes.
• Larger companies usually have more flexibility in how time is managed and can tolerate a certain level of inefficiency.

Both small and large organizations strive to maximize output in the same amount of time. At the same time, maintaining quality and value is crucial, as delivering substandard work is not sustainable in today’s market.

Time reporting and logging

Many organizations require software developers to track and report the amount of time spent on individual development tasks. Time is often tracked with different levels of granularity, such as:

• 15-minute (quarter-hour) increments
• 30-minute (half-hour) increments
• Hourly increments
• Quarter-day (2 hours) increments
• Half-day (4 hours) increments
• Full-day (8 hours) increments

Reasons for Time Tracking in Software Development

• Project planning and scheduling
  • Estimating task and project duration
  • Creating realistic timelines and milestones
  • Supporting planning with historical data
• Cost and budget control
  • Tracking labor costs
  • Monitoring project expenditure
  • Supporting financial forecasting
• Client billing and contractual obligations
  • Hour-based or day-based billing models
  • Contractual transparency
  • Auditability of delivered work
• Resource and workload management
  • Identifying over- and under-utilization
  • Balancing team capacity
  • Preventing burnout
• Progress visibility for management
  • Status reporting and oversight
  • Early risk detection
  • Decision-making support
• Compliance with processes and regulations
  • Internal governance requirements
  • Quality management standards (e.g., ISO)
  • Legal or accounting obligations
• Productivity and efficiency analysis
  • Trend analysis over time
  • Identification of bottlenecks
  • Process optimization efforts
• Organizational learning and continuous improvement
  • Improving estimation accuracy
  • Identifying recurring patterns
  • Supporting process refinement

Misc evidences

That time aspect is important.

• To win developers human hours (+ comments): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/edvinassulzickis_githubactions-aws-devops-activity-7407298585333153792-pQyt?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAFxqg0B51NowfFbViZKgEfi_sAs-XLq11M