Tracking Time at Office

Before being a team lead, I used to work on a single task, in addition to the usual office chores. Now things have changed a lot. I find it hard to keep track of time during office hours. At the end of day, I wonder how much time I actually spent on my assigned task, how much time I worked with other teammates. I felt the need of a time tracking software.

In my previous software firm, Structured Data Systems Ltd. - an offshore branch of AfriGIS, South Africa, employees were encouraged to track time by using a software named Klok. A free version is available. I have started using it.

I intend to try out other related softwares later.

Here is the template I am using now:

Office chores
  > Check office mail
  > Daily scrum meeting
  > General office meeting : occurs occasionally
  > Lunch
  > Refreshment : 2 times a day - at around 11 am and 5 pm.
  > Table Tennis : we play TT at office!
 

Team work
  > Check client issues at JIRA and update TRAC
  > Check teammates' yesterday's work at TRAC
  > Today's task assignment
  > Retrospective meeting: weekly event
  > Work with teammates: I frequently do this. Tracking time for every teammate will enable me to find a trend about with whom or on what task I do pair-programming for a given period of time.
  > Knowledge sharing session: I greatly encourage to do this immediately after lunch when everyone is relaxed. I am planning to practice this more vigorously.
  > Meeting with Product Development Manager (PDM): occurs everyday intermittently.

Checklist Before You Join a New Company

Sometimes I browse the job sites to find out companies for better opportunity. When a job circular seems good, many questions pop up in my mind. Often, I can manage someone familiar working there and I get to know about that particular company.

I think it is a good idea to have a checklist for this. Here it goes!

PROJECT:

1) How many projects are currently going on?

2) What is the average age of the projects?

3) Which technologies does the company work with?

4) How important is the project (for which recruitment is going on) to the company?

5) What are the application domains of the ongoing projects?

6) What is the average experience of engineers working there? I mean years of experience for most of the engineers.

WORK CULTURE:

1) How do you think the company provides a good learning opportunity for an engineer?

2) Do you feel sportive at office? or it feels like a conventional office (everyone working at his desk, no adda, few brainstorming among colleagues)?

3) How many hours do you "actually" need to work a day, on average? I mean, productive hour.

4) How frequent is overtime?

5) How frequent is working on weekend?

6) Do you feel that your job is secure?

7) How friendly is the relationship among the engineers?

8) How cooperative is the relationship between engineers and management?

9) What do you think a unique quality of the company that sets it apart from the other companies in the market?

10) Do you follow any software development process? If yes, what is it?

REMUNERATION:

1) What is the salary range for a fresher?

2) How many times in a year do your company give salary increment?

3) What is the average percentage of increment?

4) Is project bonus a regular phenomenon?

5) What are the other benefits?