I was recently speaking with my manager, who stated that while my work is satisfactory, they've been noticing I'm spending a lot of time of Stack Exchange. I find Stack Exchange to be very informative and helpful in my work.
Particularly considering this Stack Exchange site has many users who spend a large portion of their time on here, how can I explain to my manager how useful Stack Exchange is for me?
As joe-strazzere said in his comment here:
@Walle - your manager is hinting that you are spending too much time on non-work stuff. So far, the only response you have is that "it has many useful facts". If you can't do better than that, you would be well served by simply avoiding Stack Overflow and other StackExchange sites during work hours. Get your useful facts at home.
how can I prove its value?
You can't because it doesn't have any in that context. If you're using it to solve problems once in a while that's one thing, but if you're 'spending too much time' on it, then that is clear heads up from your boss to cease and desist.
Your boss isn't attempting to open a dialogue about pros and cons, he/she is warning you to spend less time on StackExchange.
Looking up answers to work problems is one thing, but answering questions, commenting, etc. are really just a form of socializing which your employer has the right to say "do it on your own time".
Sure, you're creating value in general, but if it's not directly related to your job, then it's not really justifiable.
If you are using Stack Exchange sites to find information that helps you complete work-related tasks, document the occasions when you solve a problem based on information that you get from an SE site.
For example, if you are responsible for tasks that are tracked with some kind of bug tracking, ticketing, or version control system, and you find yourself cobbling together a solution from a set of Stackoverflow or Superuser posts, record the URLs to those posts in the notes on the ticket. (You should be doing this anyway for completeness in tracking the issue). Then, you should be able to easily report a real number of instances in which SE has directly provided value to you and your company.
If you are building and expanding your own knowledge base, yet still able to apply the knowledge to work-related tasks, use the conversation as an opportunity to talk to your manager about continuing education. Be specific, and request training around topics and technologies that directly apply to your work and your firm. You may find a way to get additional training and have the company pay for it, in which case, your continuing education time would be sanctioned.
If, however, you find yourself researching subjects that simply interest you, or that you wish you were working with but aren't because of, e.g. company culture, you may want to ask yourself if you are growing in the right direction at your current job. In this case, be honest with yourself about how relevant your Stack Exchange research really is, and whether your manager's advisement might be a good reality check.
You may learn a lot from reading programmers/sofware engineering, workplace, etc. and it may help you grow in your career. But if you are having friction with your boss I would strongly recommend taking perusal of these sites to your own hours. Writing it off as career development is not an argument that is going to make you look good if your boss feels the need to bring it up to you.
Take your job really seriously right now. Your manager gave you some pretty serious signal that you may be being unproductive. That was nice of them. Don't wait for them to escalate this into a performance improvement plan.
You can't assume that the benefits are self-explanatory. You need to do as
@JoeStrazzere suggested in the comments and detail the specific things you have learned that are useful for your specific job. In particular, detail what work-related problems that you found solutions for on Stack Overflow. If you can show that you spent less time solving problems by looking for them on Stack Overflow, then that would be a good thing as well.
You also need to prove that you are not be behind in your work. No manager is going to support someone spending a lot of time on the Internet at any site, if the work is behind without specific proof that the time was spent researching the specific issue(s) that was(were) making your work delayed. Further, if your coworkers are solving their problems without spending hours on Stack Overflow, then it is best to bite the bullet and spend time here only when researching a specific issue.
If you are learning new things that are not immediately useful, then I would suggest you do that in your off hours.
You start using this gem:
try
{
//Do Something
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
if (DesignMode)
{
Process.Start("http://www.stackoverflow.com/search/q=" +
System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(ex.Message));
}
}
Seriously, though, if your manager can't see the value of StackOverflow, you need a new manager. There's no good answer other than that.
I think your problem is not so much about proving the value of stack exchange, but about justifying your productivity to your manager.
There are two scenarios to consider here:
You are under-performing (i.e. you are not meeting deadlines or whatever output you are producing is of poor quality) then maybe you do need to look at how much time you are spending on these sites, at the very least to give your manager the impression that you are making an effort. If you are regularly checking these sites for updates to questions/answers, you may find that these regular interrupts are actually reducing your overall productivity.
You are meeting your deadlines and otherwise producing quality output. In this case maybe you should discuss this further with your manager. You don't want them to have the perception that you are slacking off, and it may help to explain to them that the information you glean from these sites actually increases your productivity as you are not always re-inventing the wheel.
In either case, it is important for you that your manager does not perceive that you are goofing off on work time. If nothing is forthcoming from these discussions, it may be politic to limit your usage to break periods.
So there are two possibilities here - either your boss is over managing and just want to show you that it's he who is in charge here and you should obey or - or - he is not satisfied with the quality of your work.
There's no other option in first case than to leave - never waste your time working for non-professionals. But to be honest with you the very fact you had asked this question and the way you asked the question hints that you assume that your boss is a reasonable person who can be convinced in something if he was wrong. That said, we don't investigate the first possibility here.
In second scenario there's only one way to convince your superiors that you are doing it right - concentrate on your work. Words like "we are more or less satisfied, it's just that you spent too much time surfing Stackexchange" could be a sign that they are actually not satisfied and politely indicating this. Because actually good boss not that much care what and when you are surfing in case the work is done.
Here's the strategy I suggest to stick to:
I encourage you to start with these steps and trust me, you'll see how your work relationships will get better.
Depending on your situation and the relationship you have with your boss, you might be able to document specific instances where you asked a question, got an answer, and therefor saved valuable company time.
Couple that with specific instances of you answering a question that required you to become better at your job. This shows the long-term value of allowing you to spend a measured amount of time on SO/SE.
The second paragraph is probably the more tricky one to convince the PHB of. They may or may not care / believe that the site helps your continuing education.
