Lean Design Depends on Slacking Off
September 24th, 2006 by HalFortune Magazine has a special section on being effective in work. Anne Fisher (Ask Annie) writes the column. Back in March '06 Annie wrote Be Smarter at Work, Slack Off, a piece on the value of not being overburdened particularly when doing creative tasks. She wrote,
(I)t's really, really hard, if not impossible, for the human brain to come up with fresh new ideas when its owner is overworked, overtired, and stressed out. And in today's wonderful world of nonstop work, 40% of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep on weeknights.
"The physiological effects of tiredness are well-known. You can turn a smart person into an idiot just by overworking him," notes Peter Capelli, a professor of management at Wharton.
Capelli is not the only one offering that advice. 40 years earlier, one famed management theorist said something similar.
"All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done."
Peter Drucker
Some companies know better. They create the situation that keeps their designers in a condition to do their best work.
"We want to take as much hurry and worry out of people's lives as we can, because a relaxed state of mind unleashes creativity," says Stacy Sullivan, (Google's) HR director. "And everybody's on flextime here, so we don't reward face time or working super-long hours. We just measure results."
Lean design — designing for high value without corresponding waste of negative iterations and difficulty in production — demands groups of people come together in ways that call on the diversity of experience, expertise, and judgement in collaborative ways. Even one person who is overburdened can keep the team from doing its best work. A little slacking off from each of the participants might make all the difference.
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