What is a reasonable percentage of work time spent researching and learning?

Question

Part of our job is to be competent enough to make intelligent decisions pertaining to new technologies. How much time should be spent learning/researching versus implementing?

Answer 1

As much as necessary to get your job done and done well. IMO there's really no set limit or percentage.

Answer 2

Implement constantly on your own (dev stuff for yourself, try a new task/language/feature each week) and you'll learn/research constantly in the process.

The best we can do while being paid, is to implement the best we know how. And knowing is half the battle.

Answer 3

I don't think people stop learning when working!

You can do the same thing a million ways. Work time is constant research and learning providing your work is diverse enough

Answer 4

At the end of the day, one get paid to get the job done.

So - if by investing X percent of your work on learning you'd be able to complete your missions earlier, it would be in the best interest of both you and your employer.

Now it's only a matter of providing and proving the correct X to your manager

Answer 5

See related

Ethics of billing for work done on a platform you just started learning

As a freelancer, should I charge my client for the time to research & learn a subject or technology?

Answer 6

Abraham Lincoln said it best:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

So apparently Abe Lincolns rule of thumb was 2/3rds of the total time.

Yes, he actually said "four", not "hour": http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin109275.html

Answer 7

Google give their engineers 20-percent time, though from my experience few other companies would give over so much time for this, more like 2-percent time (if you're lucky).

Answer 8

It depends on the urgency of the job (sometimes you just have to get it done, yesterday), but by all means, learn and understand as much of what you are doing as possible. Taking the time to understand why things work the way they do along the limits and purposes of your given tools will always pay dividends in the future.

If you find a piece of code on SO and it solves your problem, take the time to learn exactly what it is doing and why. I believe this will always lead to getting things done quicker and smarter in the future

Answer 9

When you're not implementing existing technology, you should be researching new. When you're constantly thinking about how doing something using new technology would be soo much easier than using the old, it's time to start using the new.

Answer 10

The answer for a lot of people in this profession is "O%" or "whatever my employer will fund". These people end up leaving the business. I'd say 20% is a minimum if you want to be outstanding, and keep your edge over the long haul. On the other hand, I know one guy who does amazingly well learning on the job, so your mileage may vary.