17 min
Multiple Commitments and Multitasking in Agile Organizations and Teams Agile Weekly Podcast
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- Technology
Jade Meskill: Hello, welcome to the “Agile Weekly Podcast”. I’m Jade Meskill.
Derek Neighbors: I’m Derek Neighbors.
Roy vandeWater: I’m Roy vandeWater.
Why Do We Fall for the Multitasking in Agile Trap
Jade: Today, we wanted to talk about the dangers of multitasking in agile and maybe a little bit about multiple commitments. Roy, we’ve been having some trouble with this lately.
Roy: Self-imposed trouble.
Jade: Yeah. We should know better but we still fall for the trap. Why do we keep trying to multitask?
Roy: I don’t know. I think it’s our arrogance and thinking we’re different, and that somehow it’s going to work for us when we know it doesn’t work for anyone else.
Jade: So, because we’re really good at this, we can multitask in agile when all other humans can’t.
Roy: Right, even though it’s miserable and no fun at all.
Jade: What do you think Derek? Have you struggled with multitasking in agile?
The Organizational Multiple Resource Trap of Splitting People’s Time
Derek: I’m too dumb to do one thing, much less two things at the same time. I see a lot of teams struggle with it or actually organizations. Well, I see teams and organizations. I see organizations do it with the multiple resource trap.
I think of somebody is this logical thing that has 100 percent. Because I think of them as this logical binary bit of 100 percent, I can take 10 percent of them and give them over here, 30 percent and give them over here an 60 percent and give them over there.
On paper that sounds really fantastic, but for whatever reason it just doesn’t ever seem to pencil out quite right. I see that trap a lot.
Tearing a Person in Half is a Powerful Metaphor
Jade: Interrupt you real quick. That reminds of a cool exercise I did once with a group of managers, who were really struggling with understanding why nothing was getting done. I had them write out an individual’s name on an index card. I had them do that for their entire team and then I had them go and layout all the projects that everybody was working on. We put the projects up on a board and then I had them say like, here’s John.
How much of John is working on Project X? They said, oh about 20 percent. So, I tore about 20 percent of that index card off and you should’ve seen the look of horror on people’s face that I’m like tearing this person into pieces.
I stuck that up by the project and said all right how much is on this and that? We went through and by the time we were done there were these tiny little scraps of people everywhere all over this board.
Because they had way more projects than they had people and that visualization of that problem really sunk in, that holy crap we are really doing something very very wrong.
The No Projects Movement Time Fallacy
Derek: I think that’s becoming a common trend very similar to the no estimates hoopla, I think you’re starting to see a no projects thing emerge, which is…
Jade: Is that from you? [laughs]
Derek: No, I said it a few years ago and kind of dropped it, but I think people are picking it back up. I think what people are realizing is that when you do things by project. Projects ramp up, and ramp down, and have overlap. You have to start tearing people. Pretty soon when you do that, you get 10 percent of people and the problem is that it’s never that clean.
When I say “Jade, 50 percent of your time will be on this, and 50 percent on this other thing, and Roy, 50 percent.” What happens is the two projects both need 100 percent of you at the exact same time. It’s not one week I need 50 and one week I need 50 and it works out great. I need all of you right now, and the next week I don’t need you at all. It never is during the same time, so you just get into this total chaos that starts to ensue.
It’s crazy to see how much it helps people to not have that burden, to not be a slave to multiple masters. When they can just say, “I’m d
Jade Meskill: Hello, welcome to the “Agile Weekly Podcast”. I’m Jade Meskill.
Derek Neighbors: I’m Derek Neighbors.
Roy vandeWater: I’m Roy vandeWater.
Why Do We Fall for the Multitasking in Agile Trap
Jade: Today, we wanted to talk about the dangers of multitasking in agile and maybe a little bit about multiple commitments. Roy, we’ve been having some trouble with this lately.
Roy: Self-imposed trouble.
Jade: Yeah. We should know better but we still fall for the trap. Why do we keep trying to multitask?
Roy: I don’t know. I think it’s our arrogance and thinking we’re different, and that somehow it’s going to work for us when we know it doesn’t work for anyone else.
Jade: So, because we’re really good at this, we can multitask in agile when all other humans can’t.
Roy: Right, even though it’s miserable and no fun at all.
Jade: What do you think Derek? Have you struggled with multitasking in agile?
The Organizational Multiple Resource Trap of Splitting People’s Time
Derek: I’m too dumb to do one thing, much less two things at the same time. I see a lot of teams struggle with it or actually organizations. Well, I see teams and organizations. I see organizations do it with the multiple resource trap.
I think of somebody is this logical thing that has 100 percent. Because I think of them as this logical binary bit of 100 percent, I can take 10 percent of them and give them over here, 30 percent and give them over here an 60 percent and give them over there.
On paper that sounds really fantastic, but for whatever reason it just doesn’t ever seem to pencil out quite right. I see that trap a lot.
Tearing a Person in Half is a Powerful Metaphor
Jade: Interrupt you real quick. That reminds of a cool exercise I did once with a group of managers, who were really struggling with understanding why nothing was getting done. I had them write out an individual’s name on an index card. I had them do that for their entire team and then I had them go and layout all the projects that everybody was working on. We put the projects up on a board and then I had them say like, here’s John.
How much of John is working on Project X? They said, oh about 20 percent. So, I tore about 20 percent of that index card off and you should’ve seen the look of horror on people’s face that I’m like tearing this person into pieces.
I stuck that up by the project and said all right how much is on this and that? We went through and by the time we were done there were these tiny little scraps of people everywhere all over this board.
Because they had way more projects than they had people and that visualization of that problem really sunk in, that holy crap we are really doing something very very wrong.
The No Projects Movement Time Fallacy
Derek: I think that’s becoming a common trend very similar to the no estimates hoopla, I think you’re starting to see a no projects thing emerge, which is…
Jade: Is that from you? [laughs]
Derek: No, I said it a few years ago and kind of dropped it, but I think people are picking it back up. I think what people are realizing is that when you do things by project. Projects ramp up, and ramp down, and have overlap. You have to start tearing people. Pretty soon when you do that, you get 10 percent of people and the problem is that it’s never that clean.
When I say “Jade, 50 percent of your time will be on this, and 50 percent on this other thing, and Roy, 50 percent.” What happens is the two projects both need 100 percent of you at the exact same time. It’s not one week I need 50 and one week I need 50 and it works out great. I need all of you right now, and the next week I don’t need you at all. It never is during the same time, so you just get into this total chaos that starts to ensue.
It’s crazy to see how much it helps people to not have that burden, to not be a slave to multiple masters. When they can just say, “I’m d
17 min