multitasking

Why Managers Believe Multitasking Works: Long Decision Wait Times

MPD, multitasking / By / August 18, 2020

When I teach any sort of product/project/portfolio management, I ask, “Who believes multitasking works?” Always, at least several managers raise their hands. They believe multitasking works because they multitask all the time. Why? Because the managers have short work-time and long decision-wait time. If you are a manager, your time for any given decision looks …

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What I Wish I'd Said for the Lightning Talk: 100% Utilization

MPD, multitasking / By / December 3, 2014

I did decide to talk about how we got started on 100% utilization and what to do about it. I didn’t say everything I wanted to say, so here is what I wish I’d said: How 100% Utilization Got Started Back in the early days of computing, machines were orders of magnitude more expensive than …

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Costs of Multitasking

MPD, multitasking / By / December 3, 2014

  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 work, etc. You haven’t stopped thinking about what you’re doing, but when you stop to …

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Convincing Management That Context Switching Is a Bad Idea

MPD, multitasking / By / February 3, 2016

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 wanted to generate some discussion about my ideas. I did generate a little discussion. Don Gray …

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The Manager's First Role: Prioritization [grid::brand]

MPD, multitasking / By / September 4, 2019

  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 just don’t work this way – it isn’t cost-effective. 2) Today’s emerging workforce (20-30) were …

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Managing Multi-Tasking

MPD, multitasking / By / December 15, 2014

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 time you attempt to take on one more project. And, if you read Hal’s entry today, …

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Dealing with Multi-tasking

MPD, multitasking / By / April 24, 2022

I’m at the Software Development conference this week. One of the hot topics I discussed in my presentations and with attendees during and after the talks were about context switching and multitasking, Focused Performance and Breakthrough Thinking on Worker Productivity and Multi-tasking Makes you Stupid, studies say.We agreed that: several pieces of work at different …

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