Difference between the Work hard and work smart

Working hard and working smart sometimes can be two different things. Byron Dorgan

Software industry management team may face issues while evaluating the programming tasks. The candidate immediate manager evaluates candidate technical and non-technical skills every year. The manager evaluates the candidate based on his perspective. The candidate may perform well in some programming tasks due to personal interest. But, the manager may take the candidate average performance and evaluate. The good management team should evaluate the candidate using different parameters.

Evaluate Programming task

The management team should divide the programming tasks into the very small task which can be measurable. A good manager should give constant feedback about the resource and technical knowledge. If they do not evaluate or give feedback to the resource, the resource may get negative feedback during year end appraisal meeting. Many software companies recommended using evaluation framework to evaluate the candidate performance. Programming task always evaluated by the immediate manager. S.M.A.R.T. Goals setting process helps to set the Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely goals.

The hard work and smart work developer may not be two different persons. It may be related with programming tasks. If the resource knows the technology, they work in a smart way. If the resource does not know the technical skills or not interest to work on that particular task, the resource may work hard. The hard work and smart work may vary based on the programming tasks. Example, if the project requires running some unit testing, the resource can achieve using the following approach.

Run the test cases whenever required and update to the management.
Think innovative way and find the right tool to test the software.

The hard work developer may choose the first option or wait the requirement to choose the second approach. The smart programmer thinks about the second option and conveys the message to higher management (It may involve higher management decision to reject or approve the second or first option). After automating the tasks, the resource can move to different innovate tasks.

The following table shows the different between the hard work and smart work developers.

NoHard WorkSmart Work

1	Try with different API	Know the API.
2	Search web for reusing code	Search web for understanding the concepts
3	Try to work the piece of code	Know best practice
4	Know some computer fundamentals. But, do not know about much difference and relationship	Know the computer fundamentals like Data structure, algorithm and language API
5	Take more time to resolve the issues	Take less time to resolve the issues
6	Spend more time on office	Spend less time in office. But complete the work
7	Concentrate on complete the task	Innovative way to find problems and resolve based on business needs
8	Learn without focus	Focus on tasks and learn
9	Forget the available tools to reuse	Know the available tools and make reuse
10	No time management	Proper time management
11	Accepting all the tasks	Analysis the task and give appropriate time for each task.
12	Start code immediately	Think visually, design and code
13	Complete the task (code may duplicate)	Design reusable code
14	Add comments later when mandatory	Add comments in coding
15	Try with core programming	Find right tool to do right task

The developer can complete the task in a smart way using the following options.

Know and use the right tool to complete the task.
Plan innovative work at right time. Example if the resource is not feeling well, they can’t think smart way.
Know the good coding and design practice from industry leading books, Web or blogs.
Learn from mistakes.
Follow the smart work ( coding, web blog or people).

The smart work comes based on practice using the different resource. If the resources are working hard, try to understand the reason and motivate to work smart way.