Multitasking Infection, PMCamp Berlin 2014

transcript

MULTITASKING Don’t infect your Team

MULTITASKING Christoph Moser (chris@vividbreeze.com)

I DEVELOPED THE GAME MULTITASKING INFECTION TO SHOW MANAGERS THAT MULTITASKING CAN HAVE SEVERE EFFECTS NOT ONLY TO THEMSELVES BUT ESPECIALLY TO THEIR TEAMS. IN ADDITION THIS GAME AIMS TO MAKE ANYONE AWARE OF THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM SUCCESSFULLY. ADDITIONAL MATERIAL (TASK SHEETS ETC.) WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE VERY SOON. THE GAME IS AVAILABLE UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

SUMMARY

YOUR WORKPLACE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO_oEGHWSMU

MANY OF US (LOVE TO)

MULTITASK

More than half of the 1.100 participants stated they respond to e-mail immediately or as soon as possible. 21% respond to incoming e-mails within a meeting

“Infomania” Study for Hewlett-Packard (Wilson G, 2005)

PEOPLE LOVE TO MULTITASK

POSSIBLE REASONS? LACK OF SELF-DISCIPLINE

SOME LIKE TO BE DISRUPTED

CURRENT TASK IS BORING OR DIFFICULT

LOVE A WELCOME DISTRACTION

OTHERS EXPECT THAT I’M REACTING ASAP

THE PROJECT MANAGER

Five Salty Balls by Gabriel Rojas Hruska , https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluefade/4229364807/

WE USUALLY MULTITASK

GREAT (PROJECT)

MANAGERS DELEGATE

http://www.recruiter.com/i/10-things-that-make-a-good-project-manager-great/

Manager

MULTITASKING IS INFECTIOUS

HOW DO I RECOGNISE?

NOT YET ANOTHER NON-SENSE MEETING!

ARRGG – I WANT TO STAY FOCUSSED FOR 30 MINS….

MULTITASKING =

TASK SWITCHING

10-point fall in IQ by people getting distracted by phone calls or incoming emails.

“Infomania” Study for Hewlett-Packard (Wilson G, 2005)

Chronic Multitaskers perfomend extremely bad at all tasks given compared to non-multitaskers. Multitaskers use their brains less effectively.

Cognitive control in media multitaskers (Nass, C et al., 2009)

Participants who had to perform three tasks simultaneously regulary forgot one of the tasks and made three times as many mistakes compared to working on two tasks at the same time.

Divided Representation of Concurrent Goals in the Human Frontal Lobes (Charron S, Koechlin E, 2010)

CONSEQUENCES

LOSS OF BRAIN POWER

CONSEQUENCES

Participants lost a significant amount of time when they switched between tasks. The more complex the task, the more time they lost. Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching (Rubinstein et al., 2001)

SWITCHING TIME

Interruption

Task + Interruptions

Switching Time

MULTITASKING

INFECTION

THE PLAYERS

THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM

Designs the product in a way customers love.

Finds pragmatic solutions for complicated problems.

An expert in finding bugs and errors.

THE PROJECT MANAGER

THE TASKS

Contribute Slides to a Presentation

Research Tasks

Help with Technical Problems

Administrative Tasks

THE SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

Need Help

Managers Other PMs

Colleagues Members of other Teams

THE WHOLE PICTURE

Others

THE RULES

Project Managers receive 1 point per correctly completed task on time 1 PT

-1 PT If a task is not completed correctly (of not on time) the Project Managers receive minus 1 point

Team Member receive 1 point for each entity (block)

ROUND 1

ROUND 1 8 Minutes (equivalent to 8h workday)

Project Manager approached tasks on TODO-List sequentially (one after the other)

Others

Others ask project managers or other team members occasionally for help.

Team-Members do their job

LEARNINGS?

MIKE SAYS

” The usual example is that the ScrumMaster must protect the team from an overly aggressive product

owner.”

Mike Cohen, 2011

HOW CAN WE DECREASE

MULTITASKING ?

ROUND 2

ROUND 2 2 Minutes Preparation Time. 8 Minutes (equivalent to 8h workday)

Project Manager approached tasks on TODO-List in any order she or he likes.

Others

Others ask project managers or other team members occasionally for help.

Team-Members do their job

LEARNINGS?

HOW CAN WE DECREASE MULTITASKING?

!   Say “no” or “come back later, please”

!   Check your emails only once an hour

!   Disable your messenger

!   Plan Meetings carefully

!   Prioritise and batch tasks for others

!   Occasionally work somewhere else

!   Establish “Office Hours”

!   Only delegate tasks if you really cannot solve them on your own

FEEDBACK

PMCAMP BERLIN 2014

!   Create no-disturbing slots

!   Scrum Master is SPoC for the team

!   Agree on other busy signals (Status in Messengers, Traffic Light, etc.)

!   Don’t pick up the phone when you are busy (if the problem is urgent the person will visit you)

!   Plan Meetings around common arrival times or breaks

!   Plan Meetings efficiently, split meetings with different participants (e.g. technical and managerial part)

!   Mutual education of members about when to interrupt and when not to disturb

PMCAMP BERLIN 2014

LEARNINGS The Game needs about 15 Minutes of preparation of the environment.

The one team per table setting was quite good.

If you have only 40 minutes, use only one round without measuring team performance. If you plan to run the whole game with two rounds, it will take about two hours.

Let the discussion about improvements run freely for about 15 minutes without pushing the team to the improvements you have already thought about before.

The QS Task (comparing two rows) was too easy – it will be altered soon.

Although project managers are kind of aware about the negative effects of Multitasking, the game helps to put a focus on it.

THANK YOU

WHO WAS THIS GUY?

Christoph Moser

Dipl-Ing. tech. Informatik, MBA Agile Coach, Agile Project Manager Strong Background as Java Developer and Information Architect Certified Scrum Master Certified Scrum Product Owner Keen runner, photographer and cook

chris@vividbreeze.com

0049 173 36 18 15 8

www.vividbreeze.com

Multitasking Infection, PMCamp Berlin 2014

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