Decent article, but I have to nitpick one comment:<p>> Heavy sprints are important to achieving milestones for major events<p>No, they are not. Heavy sprints reflect planning.<p>If we're talking about a one-off, once-in-the-lifetime-of-a-company type of event, it's understandable.<p>But in most situations like this, one can usually chalk it up to "lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part". Whether you agree or disagree, the net effect is that it kills morale. Absolutely kills it, as the product development team loses faith in the planning powers-that-be.<p>Heavy sprints are most often a reflection of upstream planning, and a poor one at that.
Maybe I have been fortunate in choosing employers, but is 1 or 2 days off really going to make people feel good about the extra 80 hours they worked? Even considering the "tips" in this article I feel burnt out and awful about working for a company like that.
s/Reward them with fun/Reward them with money/<p>It's ridiculous to expect more than 40hrs/wk from someone without fair compensation. Need more hours out of someone but can't afford to give them more money? Maybe they should be cofounders.<p>This of course with the assumption that 70hrs/wk @ 2 months is the equivalent of ~ 3.5 months of work at 40hrs/wk, which I don't buy.
I just left a startup that was doing pretty much the opposite of every point made on this list. After 4 months of 90+ hour weeks, I woke up one day and asked myself "Why the hell am I doing this?" Work environments like that are neither healthy nor sustainable, but unfortunately I think a lot of it stemmed from the mindset that there's nobility in killing yourself at work and anything less than that makes you a p<i></i>*y. Needless to say, turnover was ridiculously high and morale was terrible.