This morning, I read Dwayne Phillips’ A New Writing Project at Home. I have the same problem, although my Successful Independent Consulting book is NOT YET DONE. (The book is now done.) The book isn’t done yet because I’m waiting for other people (indexer, cover designer, layout person) to finish their work. (At some point, […]
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
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
My Gantthead.com column has been up for a couple of weeks, but I was too busy traveling to notice :-(. The Silent Project Killer column is up. Enjoy!
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
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
A reader sent me email with this question: “We have a group of four people (3 developers and a tester). We work on 4 products, releasing one about once a month (each product is released once a quarter). The developers are devoted to one product when they’re developing, but have to fix problems immediately if
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 they can do a couple of things at one time. Maybe they can. But the more
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
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,