Project e-Tip of the Week
June 25th, 2003 by Hal
This week's Project e-Tip was submitted by Clarke Ching, a reader in Scotland. Clarke reminds us of the perils of multi-tasking by sharing his story of book reading. Enjoy!
 The Project Reformer's e-Tip of the Week |
| 009: Eliminate Multi-Tasking to Speed Project Completion |
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I (Clarke) have a bad habit of trying to read 3,4,5 or more books at one time. My bedside currently has about 12 books, all of which are "in progress". It (unjustifiably, I think) annoys my wife immensely. If A-E represents the 5 books I am currently switching between, and I switch between each every so often then my reading looks like this: ABCDEABCDEABCDEABCDE … all finished Compare this where I read one at a time. AAAABBBBCCCCDDDDEEEE While it appears that all five tasks finish at the same time. We know from our own reading that it takes awhile to get back into a book. We might have to back up to re-acquaint ourself. And maybe our retention falls off. Projects are just the same. Task completions often release work for another person, consequently multi-tasking significantly delays the release of work and the completion of the project.
Submitted by Clarke Ching, Scotland shamelessly borrowing from Critical Chain. |
©2003 Hal Macomber | RPM | e-Tip Archive | PDF | Submit Tip |
Clarke selected a 1-year subscription to Business Book Summaries as his reward for submitting the Project e-Tip.
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June 26th, 2003 at 4:58 am
Sometimes I find synergies across books when I switch among them, or my brain makes interesting connections as I go back and forth among the different topics.
Sometimes that’s worth the cost of switching.
June 26th, 2003 at 5:41 am
I do the same thing. Especially when I’m exploring a topic for blogging. But, Clarke offered a Project e-Tip. The points on multi-tasking are quite valid for the project setting.
June 26th, 2003 at 8:11 pm
Hello. I am new to this site and I would like to comment on this recent posting.
I find that it takes a certain attitude and personality to accomplish a multi-task workday. Not everyone is the same, this is obvious. People have different ways of remembering things and apply their method accordinly.
I have found that when I find myself juggling a few projects, I focus on limiting the number of varibles that are involved in each project. For example, if I have plans being drawn from a particular engineer, I compile a list of all issues and questions, even if it applies to different jobs that the engineer is working on for me. This way I have something in front of me and I am able to address all the issues, instead of making numerous calls thoughout the day.
I beleive that efficiency is the greatest ally in Multi-tasking. The more efficient and streamlined your tasks are in a given day, the more you can accomplish.
June 30th, 2003 at 4:45 pm
I agree with Dale Emery that there is a synergy when reading more than one book at a time. It’s certainly true for non-fiction.
It’s not synergistic, though, when reading fiction that your wife is patiently waiting for (not that she’d wait, but you get my drift). It’s also not so good if your wife reads much faster than you do and you’ve made yourself into a bottleneck.
Clarke
July 1st, 2003 at 7:07 pm
Hi,
I would like to know if you limit the scope of multi-tasking to construction projects, does the response tend to become binary - good to have it OR not good to have it independent of personality, skills, project type etc.?
Here is a rhetorical answer to my own question: For construction projects, ideally, it is good to get projects to a milestone before switching. The milestone can be defined apriori and probably means that a person/equipment works on a project for say two weeks or one month before switching
July 5th, 2003 at 3:55 pm
My answer applies to projects of all types. In a project setting the completion of one task releases work for another task. Sometimes the release is to the same performer and other times to another performer. (The book example only shows the former.) Further, in many project settings a performer doesn’t know how the completion of a task releases work let alone to whom.
So, the attention we have is on the design and authorization of tasks that can be readied for proceeding at the time the task has been released by other tasks. To do this effectively we must have people working on one task at a time. That leads to the speediest completion and therefore release of tasks.