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15 Key Considerations When Encouraging Developer Side Projects

Forbes Technology Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Expert Panel, Forbes Technology Council

Developers need a constant challenge to keep their motivation up and sharpen their skills. To offer a continuous challenge, some businesses provide their developers with the chance to work on individual side projects while at work.

The onus is usually on the employee to ensure that their side project doesn't interfere with their work for the company. From a management perspective, this sort of trust is a positive step since it ensures that the developers remain enthusiastic and can hone their skills on company time.

Fifteen experts from Forbes Technology Council explore the considerations that businesses should keep in mind when offering their employees this perk to ensure that it doesn't get out of hand at the company's expense.

1. Make Sure Projects Don't Interfere With Output

Developers are artists, creators and puzzle solvers; therefore, encouraging creativity is essential to engagement and the type of culture we want to create. Of course, the side projects cannot interfere with the output expected by clients. Our clients understand that exercising those creative muscles helps them by working with engaged team members who bring more creative solutions. - Monty Hamilton, Rural Sourcing

2. Ask For A Project Description

Allowing developers to work on side projects keeps them motivated and good developers want to express themselves creatively through this work. Upgrading developer skills through structured training is not very effective as many a times it leads to narrow conceptual understanding. The only parameter that I set is for them to provide a brief description of their side project. - Arun Samuga, Elemica International, Inc.

3. Seek Projects That Can Transition

I have, on occasion, encouraged side projects in areas that I believe might be of relevance to the company down the road. I normally require that the work to be properly researched and documented, following the proper development/coding standards so that in the event it is elevated to a core project, the transition is relatively straightforward. There has been more than one such side project that became useful. - Chris Kirby, Retired

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4. Allow Developers To Invest In Their Own Creativity

We encourage developers to think outside the parameters of their current initiatives. Having side projects can be instrumental in expanding their creativity. Customers are buying more than just the technology you sell. They are purchasing your expertise and ability to innovate over the long term. Allowing your developers to invest in their own creativity is an investment in the success of your company. - Kristina Bergman, Integris Software

5. Explore Projects That Can Solve Industry Problems

There is motivation and there is the illusion of motivation. In biotech, many data infrastructures and pipelines are less well developed than in other tech environments. Project management needs to industrialize data science processes and this requires a hefty dose of innovation. It's best to use the side projects to explore solutions in the still immature field of industrial biotech data sciences. - Amalio Telenti, Vir Biotechnology

6. Set Clear Borders During Work Hours

You need to set clear borders and decide if you'll allow your team to work on side projects during working hours. If the projects are not related to the core of your business, they shouldn't take more than 5% of the employee’s work hours. However, if the projects can eventually be used in the company, like contributing to an open-source project related to your business, you can let people dedicate more time. - Ivailo Nikolov, SiteGround

7. Make Sure Projects Impact Customers

The parameters we set up are that the side projects must showcase an emerging tech that can create a business impact on our customers. We also prefer that side projects be based on a target industry problem. It could range from an AI-based tool that helps healthcare companies make simpler decisions to a serverless infrastructure for insurers. - Eugene Khazin, Prime TSR

8. Encourage Curiosity

I have openly encouraged my developers to pursue side projects. I try to cultivate chats about what we find interesting, and I encourage them to try to publish their work through Github or a blog. I also encourage them to focus on what they're truly interested in. When you're working nights or weekends, it's important to stay engaged, or else you'll eventually lose interest and quit. - Joe Conley, Buyside

9. Motivate Them To Invest In Their Own Careers

It is absolutely necessary to keep your team members skills upgraded. This is an investment you do in your people. Cross-functional training has proved to be very effective in our company. We motivate them to invest in their own careers by utilizing the platform the company is proving them. We build our people up for the future of our company and eventually for their own careers when they move on. - Bhavna Juneja, Infinity, a Stamford Technology Company

10. Let Them Contribute To The Open-Source Community

We believe side projects that not only help developers skills, but contribute to the community are the best. We invest in and support our developers updating their technical skills and encourage them to think outside the box while contributing to the open-source community. It's a win-win situation for us. - Amit Ojha, Green Wave Ingredients

11. Provide Resources For Creative Exploration

We designate periods of time for creative exploration and provide developers with helpful tools and resources that facilitate work on side projects outside of their usual assignments. This adds diversity to daily experiences, boosts work satisfaction and expands critical thinking and innovation skills. We find this often leads to results that solve customer problems and add business value. - Kris Beevers, NS1

12. Ask Developers To Develop Individual Learning Plans

Depending on the experience level of the individual, we ask them to develop an individual learning plan to expand their knowledge. For newer staff, this includes fundamental areas like data modeling or architecture. For more senior staff, we encourage tinkering with new tools and languages. It may be learning AI, progressive web apps or in some cases, communication or business acumen. - Dave Ladouceur, Life.ai

13. Give Free Rein To Brainstorm New Ideas

We actively encourage side projects and ask all of our employees to pitch new product ideas and personal development initiatives. Additionally, we run 48-hour coding events twice each year where developers have free rein to brainstorm new ideas and bring them to life. Many of these projects have enhanced our current roadmap or were immediately added to our solution. - Adam Rogers, Ultimate Software

14. Consider Internal Development Projects

As a rule, our company does not allow moonlighting so any side project that our developers are willing to take on are provided as internal projects. Some of these projects do not come with funding, but are opportunities for developers to learn and be creative. It is difficult to find appropriate and challenging side projects for developers, but they provide that much needed outlet for them when found. - Michael Hoyt, Life Cycle Engineering, Inc.

15. Organize Hackathons Instead

I am not a fan of having side projects. However, I understand the need to have a creative outlet, so we do a hackathon each year where our engineers can team up and can build anything they want related to the company. It has been a great success. We involve the entire company, have prizes for winning teams and really showcase the engineering talent we have. - Jim Higgins, Solutionreach