How to Avoid Crunch Time in Development Industry

In the development industry, crunch time is having a serious effect on staff of all levels. The lead up to a big release creates massive amounts of stress and oftentimes the product is worse because of that. If you want to avoid this then we’re here to teach you some essential tips.

Communicate Openly

If you’re working with others, then you have to be able to share the information that you have. There’s no point in being coy about how long things will take or irritated if things are not going to plan. Open and honest communication will make everyone feel more forthcoming and will help to highlight any issues.

Creating this kind of open forum is hugely beneficial to a development team of any size. If you allow someone to stand silent or discourage communication, then you won’t get a heads up if your team begin to struggle. If you discourage this kind of communication once, it’s hard to foster this kind of attitude again.

The best practice here is to lead by example, if you want people to communicate effectively with you, then you need to offer them this respect too. This doesn’t mean that everyone should come to you with all of their negative woes, but you should be ready to allow them to voice concerns or constructive criticism.

As a development team lead, it can feel like negativity is a criticism on you, but this isn’t the case. There’s room to hear everyone on the team out, you may just come up with a new solution that you would not have otherwise thought of. The depth of experience that you have in the room should be used to your best advantage, instead of allowing it to go without being noticed.

When making key decisions, try to bring them to the group too. Developers will be much happier to work towards a solution if they have had a hand in creating it. This means they’re more invested in the solution and in the outcome that it creates. Don’t run a dictatorship! There may be a better way to do things, which will give you more resources and avoid the dreaded crunch.

Make Sure you’re Productive, Not Just Busy

Being busy can cause a lot of stress, but it doesn’t always mean that you’re actually being productive. Many developers flap about during crunch time, but they don’t actually achieve anything. This creates more stress within the group, as they see a team lead becoming stressed out.

While there may be cause for stress, if you’re just running about then you’re probably not actually being very productive. You can start to break things down into smaller tasks, which will help you to work in a more logical way. You can use tracking tools like this Kanban board template to begin to separate your large task into more achievable chunks. Kanban is one of the leading methods of work management, so this template may be just what you need to become more productive.

This kind of busy culture can end up really affecting your workforce, as they feel the need to stay late or come in early just to appear busy. While this may gain them praise from higher ups, this won’t actually do anything positive for the group. Focus on praising people for their outcomes, rather than just for being there.

This task tracking element can also allow you to identify members of staff that may be struggling with a particular task. In development, they may be delaying another stage of the programme from taking place. Check in on them and figure out whether they need help to complete their task or if they have any questions. This makes you seem like a team player and reduces the potential crunch time that can come later down the line. Prioritise tasks and make sure that others on the team know the order in which they have to be done.

Create a Culture of Trust

Trust within a development team is hugely important, as you want to ensure that others in your team know they can place their trust in you. This could be trusting you with a task, asking you to review their code or working on a shared project. When this trust is there, it’s a lot easier to work on projects and pass them off between different developers.

If there’s a more hostile tone or negativity in the room, then people don’t want to open themselves up to criticism. This is a sure fire way to have other developers clamming up and not wanting to share thoughts on the project. With this, you lose productivity and even creativity, so you may miss an important thought from a developer that could change the project entirely.

Within this trust, you’ll also find that other developers start to panic less, which takes the stress off crunch time. They know that you and others in the team can be relied upon, so they don’t feel like they’re isolated or have an undue burden. This relaxes the room and means that you can focus on the task at hand, rather than the individuals in the room.

If you do have a crunch time, then they need to be able to trust and respect that this won’t be a regular occurrence. It’s normal for development to pick up the pace near the end of a project, but you don’t want to create an unpleasant working environment. Similarly, some employees thrive under pressure, but you don’t want this to be a constant in the workplace.

When you reassure them that it won’t be, you need to have that trust there for them to be able to believe you.

Explain the Opportunities

When a crunch time hits, it means that you’re all working hard to create a product for a deadline. For many employees, they want to be involved in the celebration and benefits thereafter, not just the stress leading up to the event. The simple act of explaining the benefits behind the crunch and sharing your appreciation means that other developers know what they’ve been working towards.

If you don’t do this, then they may feel like they’ve not feel like they have had a real effect on the project. Then, if the job picks up pace once more, they will be less likely to help out and do the extra hours that you may require. Keeping morale up is essential if you want your developers to be able to work with you long term.

While this won’t immediately resolve the issues around these crunch times, other developers will feel more appreciated. This kind of open communication also helps in other aspects too, with developers more likely to weigh in on ways in which you could streamline your processes. This will end up saving you time in the long term, which will again negate the need for that crunch.

Crunch time is something that plagues the development industry, but it doesn’t have to take over your professional life. If you use these ways of managing your workflow, then you will be much better off in the long term. Make your preparations and really use everyone on the team to make sure your next development project is off to great success.