If you follow The Garland Group blog, you no doubt have heard about the Result Only Work Environment (ROWE) in which we work. We often talk about how great it to work "whenever we want, wherever we want, as long as the work gets done." You may even be starting to think that this "Garland Group" isn't a real company, it only exists somewhere in between the real world and the land of unicorns and fairy god mothers.

I promise you, this is a real company. And yes, we do work this way. And no, we don't have it all figured out. But yes, it's fun learning as we go.

The Setup

Over the last two weeks I've been part of a ROWE experiment here on the Development team. As a team, we work on two week deadlines, and instead of doing my work more or less week by week during our June 16 to June 30 cycle, I did things a little differently. The week of June 15 I got 95% of my work done for the entire two week cycle, then spent the week of June 22 at beautiful Lake Tahoe, and finally finished up the last 5% after I returned.

It was definitely a roller coaster ride and I thought I'd share some of the highlights.

The Front Loader

The week of June 15 was definitely one of the most focused weeks of work I've done in a while. The key wasn't what I was working on, but when I was working. While we try not to talk about the "when" behind our work, I can say, shifting my work schedule to an earlier hour was a big help here. Many of the interruptions and fires during a normal don't seem to start until around 10am, so I found the more work I could knock out before then, the better. Also, a good chunk of work on Saturday helped get me get the final push I need to feel comfortable leaving.

The Relaxation

Lake Tahoe was beautiful and most importantly, very cool. (Escaping a week of 100 degree heat for highs in the 70s is a big win!) However, what allowed the week to be relaxing was much much more than the weather. Here were the keys to being able to unwind:

Dave

If you don't know Dave, you should. He is our front end development guru and was willing to take on being "Mr. First Responder" for the week. He took in any support ticket, provided first response, and in most cases, had it cleaned up before I even knew about it.

Scheduling in email.

This was not an off-the-grid-leave-me-alone trip. (In fact, I didn't even take vacation days for it.) We're used to a not-always-on mentality, but it was important not only to stay in the loop, but to make sure I didn't hold any one up. I scheduled in an hour of email each day to make sure I was helping where help was needed.

Being flexible.

Our flight home was at 2:50 pm. During the week, a conference call was scheduled for 11 am. We had to check bags, deal with a rental car, and account for a mountain drive from Tahoe to Reno. (And I'm a very conservative traveler when it comes to making flights, being at airports, etc.) So, despite my dread of leaving the Lake an hour earlier than planned, it was well worth it to make sure I was able to find a good place to be on the conference call.

The Return

Getting back and into the swing of things was pretty easy. I had a few loose ends of my cycle work to get done so the whole "I don't wanna go back to work" thing never happened. It was actually kind of nice to have a small amount of work to ease me back into things.

The Recap

On Monday, I sat down with Brad to talk about our little experiment. We both agreed that, at a "nuts and bolts" level, the experiment was a success. The work got done. And that's the most important thing.