-
Johanna’s Books
Tag Archives: multitasking
Multitasking is Conflict Avoidance
There’s a great quote over at The pernicious thinking behind multi-tasking. Note the admission that required multi-tasking is an implicit means to avoid conflicts around setting priorities. I’ve been doing a bunch of multitasking talks this year (and suggesting … Continue reading
Costs of Multitasking
I’m trying to describe the costs of multitasking. Here’s what I’ve got so far: There are three parts to multitasking: Stopping the work you’re doing. The stopping cost is the time it takes to mark your place, save your … Continue reading
Trip Report From AYE 2006
I’m finally back home after 4 weeks on the road. Yes, I was completely nuts to spend 4 weeks away. My office is a disaster, and so is my email. (My domain name is being spoofed, so I’m getting … Continue reading
Convincing Management That Context Switching Is a Bad Idea
A few weeks ago, I republished an article originally published in Better Software: Convincing Management That Context Switching Is a Bad Idea on the AYE site. I’d received no feedback about the article when it was published, so I … Continue reading
Schedule Game #8: Pants on Fire
You’re a project manager. Your project is proceeding fairly well. You’ve had a few bumps, but you’re making progress. You come into work one day, and there’s a message to meet with the Big Cheese. Big Cheese says, “Stop … Continue reading
Posted in schedule games
Tagged management, multitasking, project management, project team
2 Comments
Making the Problems of Multitasking Real
Clarke Ching’s Multitasking MAKES YOU STUPID is another great article. But when I teach PMs or coach managers, they say, “I need to multitask to get things done.” Or, they say, “I’m ok with multitasking.” Even smart people think … Continue reading
The Manager’s First Role: Prioritization [grid::brand]
At a recent presentation, (Managing the Management Balancing Act) I discussed the problems of multi-tasking. I received this feedback: Johanna, I have to say that I think you are off the path in terms of “multiple projects.” 1) Organizations … Continue reading
Think about Overtime
My Stickyminds column this month deals with choosing when to start and end project overtime, “When Should You Start Project Overtime?” Frank Patrick has already chimed in with one of the common causes of overtime, multi-tasking. See Multi-tasking Multiplies … Continue reading
Build Fast and Fix Fast
I’m a fan of nightly builds with automated smoke tests, run overnight. In the morning when everyone returns to work, anyone who’s broken the build fixes it. In most cases, the developers see what they did and they fix … Continue reading
Posted in build
Tagged feedback, multitasking, product development, project management, technical debt
Leave a comment
Managing Multi-Tasking
After my presentation last night at the Detroit PMI chapter, an attendee asked me, “Is context switching really as bad as you say it is?” Yes, it is. I believe Weinberg’s estimate of losing 10-20% of possible work-time every … Continue reading
