I recently read a question on here about - How to balance Teamwork and Babble? - and David Espina's answer pointed out that despite developers being contracted as 100% FTE (full-time equivalents), in reality they only deliver between 45% and 75%.

For simplicity's sake, translating that statistic into hours implies that in a typical 8 hour day (9 to 5), developers only work around 4 to 6 hours.

Based on my experience at work, I would tend to agree with David. In other words, I have also found that developer stamina and / or willingness to work varies quite a bit from one developer to the next.

Some developers enjoy working 8 hours per day. Other developers experience stress when they work for prolonged periods of time and require regular breaks during the day in order to perform at their best.

In other words, a 4-hour per day developer (let's call him laid-back Larry) gets stressed if he is required to put in 8 hours per day. This reduces Larry's morale and thus impacts his long-term productivity.

Likewise an 8-hour per day developer (let's call him workaholic Winston) gets stressed when Larry takes regular breaks, because he feels like he's the one doing all the hard work whilst Larry is free-riding. But levelling the playing field by inviting Winston to work 4 hours per day instead of 8 results in a loss of long-term productivity as well.

So how do you manage a team of developers when their preferred working hours vary?

I recently read a question on here about - How to balance Teamwork and Babble? - and David Espina's answer pointed out that despite developers being contracted as 100% FTE (full-time equivalents), in reality they only deliver between 45% and 75%.

For simplicity's sake, translating that statistic into hours implies that in a typical 8 hour day (9 to 5), developers only work around 4 to 6 hours.

Based on my experience at work, I would tend to agree with David. In other words, I have also found that developer stamina and / or willingness to work varies quite a bit from one developer to the next.

Some developers enjoy working 8 hours per day. Other developers experience stress when they work for prolonged periods of time and require regular breaks during the day in order to perform at their best.

In other words, a 4-hour per day developer (let's call him laid-back Larry) gets stressed if he is required to put in 8 hours per day. This reduces Larry's morale and thus impacts his long-term productivity.

Likewise an 8-hour per day developer (let's call him workaholic Winston) gets stressed when Larry takes regular breaks, because he feels like he's the one doing all the hard work whilst Larry is free-riding. But levelling the playing field by inviting Winston to work 4 hours per day instead of 8 results in a loss of long-term productivity as well.

So how do you manage a team of developers when their preferred working hours vary?