Think time used to be built in to project estimates. It was expected that considerable time would be spent in thinking mode. I believe the general number was 20%. Today, managers want to treat IT workers like robots who should know everything and be productive immediately on a project.

I was asked once why I wasn't typing on my keyboard. I said I needed time to think about a bug that was raised in testing. The manager said that maybe they would replace me with someone who didn't need to think. :Wow:

I have been involved in efforts to take one to two weeks off to work on ideas to help the organization. They weren't necessarily IT related, but, most ideas had an IT component. It was very nice to be able to do that and some great ideas were born. Upper management thought it was wasted time and fired the manager who came up with the idea. :crazy: