I’ve been wrestling with this question as we scale our operations and bring on more contributors.
Should we track how many hours people work, or just focus on what they deliver?
Most traditional companies are obsessed with time tracking. Clock in at 9, clock out at 5. Track every minute. Measure productivity by hours logged. But in web3, we’re supposedly building the future of work, right?
The time-tracking side
There’s something to be said for time tracking. It creates accountability. People show up. You know who’s pulling their weight and who’s coasting. It’s fair in the sense that everyone puts in the same effort.
Plus, let’s be honest, some tasks genuinely require time investment. You can’t rush good research. You can’t shortcut relationship building. Community management isn’t about quick wins, it’s about consistent presence.
And there’s the practical side. How do you budget for projects if you don’t know how long things take? How do you plan resources or set realistic expectations?
The output-based argument
But then I think about the best contributors I know. They don’t work normal hours. They work in bursts. They might solve a week’s worth of problems in a single afternoon, then spend three days thinking.
Some people are naturally faster. Some have better tools, more experience, or just think differently. Why should someone who can deliver the same result in 2 hours get paid less than someone who takes 8?
And honestly, time tracking feels like we don’t trust people. Like we’re managing children instead of partners in building something meaningful.
The web3 complexity
In traditional companies, you can maybe get away with time tracking because the work is predictable. But web3 moves too fast. The priorities change weekly. The opportunities come and go in days.
How do you time-track “figured out why our community engagement dropped 30%” or “identified the next big narrative we should position for”? The value isn’t in the hours spent, it’s in the insight gained.
And here’s what we’re dealing with right now: we need methodologies like Agile to stay organized across time zones and different initiatives, but these frameworks can feel rigid and creativity-killing. For distributed teams, accountability is crucial, but so is keeping work engaging and satisfying. Nobody wants their passion project to feel like tedious corporate “work.”
The tricky part? While any framework is better than no framework, it’s nearly impossible to teach methodology when there’s no motivation to learn. The pain needs to become unbearable for people to have that “gotcha” moment and understand why structured approaches actually help rather than hinder.
The moment work becomes boring repetition, you lose the creative spark that makes web3 special. But without some structure, distributed teams fall apart.
My current thinking
I’m leaning toward output-based management, but with some guardrails. Clear deliverables, regular check-ins, transparent communication about what you’re working on and why.
But I’m worried about a few things:
- How do you handle tasks that are important but hard to measure? Like “building relationships” or “staying on top of industry trends”?
- What about people who game the system? Deliver the minimum viable output while others go above and beyond?
- How do you balance accountability with keeping work engaging? The moment it feels like corporate drudgery, you’ve lost the plot.
The real question
Maybe this isn’t actually about time vs output. Maybe it’s about trust and communication.
Do you trust your team to do good work without constant monitoring? Can you communicate expectations clearly enough that people know what success looks like? Are you hiring people who care about the mission, not just the paycheck?
Because if you don’t have trust and communication, neither time tracking nor output-based management will save you.
What’s your experience?
Have you managed teams or been managed using these different approaches? What worked and what didn’t?
For those building in web3, how are you handling this with your teams? Are you using traditional management approaches or experimenting with something new?
And here’s the harder question: if we’re building decentralized organizations, shouldn’t our management philosophy reflect those values? What does that even look like in practice?
