4/7/2023 0 Comments Shipit day![]() ![]() At the time of this program's implementation, the United States' work force was composed of highly inflexible employment opportunities in rigid business structures. The 15% project was an initiative established by corporation 3M. ![]() Side project time has been criticized by some academics, such as Queens College sociology professor Abraham Walker, as "exploitative" due to how it grants employers the intellectual property rights over the personal business ideas of their employees that the employer would have never requested to be worked on otherwise. Some, such as LinkedIn, have trialed more restrictive versions of such initiatives in which employees must first pitch their project and have it approved by their manager to work on it during company time. Other major companies that have at one time or another offered some or all of their employees the benefit include the BBC (10%), Apple (a few contiguous weeks yearly), and Atlassian (20%). Though the program's continuity has been questioned Google states it remains an active program. It led to the development of products such as Gmail and AdSense. Technology company Google is credited for popularizing the 20% concept. Side project time is limited by two stipulations: what the employee works on is the intellectual property of their employer, and if requested, an explanation must be able to be given as to how the project benefits the company in some way, even tangentially. This week, however, I wonder if many of you think you could get traction on an idea in 24 hours? Would you want a ShipIt day at your company, 24 hours, once a quarter? Or maybe you'd be interested in Redgate's model, one week a year.Side project time is a type of employee benefit constituting a guarantee from employers that their employees may work on their personal projects during some part (usually a percentage) of their time at work. ![]() While I hope that people don't feel too pressured to join in, I also hope that most people relish the chance to tackle a project and make something happen in 24 hours. They have a fun video that shows some of the ways in which this hackathon works. Atlassian has a lot of employees, and they've moved to remote ShipIt days, with some projects taking multiple ShipIt days across quarters. There seems to be a large amount of participation, and I'm sure this can be hard on those with families, but for one day a quarter, perhaps this might be fun. While some might see it as a chore, others see opportunity. The idea seems to be to foster some camaraderie, an exciting environment, and pressure to chase an idea. They work from Thursday afternoon until noon on Friday, at which point teams can present their project. They seemed to enjoy the process, though I wonder if they still do them and have gotten tired or writing about them or they stopped.Ītlassian is the company that started this, running the days as 24 hour events where they provide resources to help teams work together. There is a consulting company, called Six Feet Up, that wrote a series of posts after running eleven ShipIt days, one a quarter. While looking to see how other companies have done this, I ran across a few interesting posts. It's amazing to me how many things come out of a week's worth of work from a team of 5-10 people. ![]() I wrote about Redgate's Down Tools Week recently, where we suspend most work for a week and assemble teams to work on a project. ![]()
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