Development requires focus. It’s hard work, and it gets even harder if there’s a constant stream of interruptions. From just-this-just-that to just one more question to just one more thing. People pop by “just for a minute” but they don’t realize that they’re effectively breaking your funk. Our Technical Lead Grega Pušnik talks interruptions and hacks for interruption-free days.
Development requires longer stretches of time blocked out for just that – developing – without interruptions. People dropping in for clarifications, calling impromptu meetings to sync with the team, so everyone is on the same page … – this disrupts the whole process. It’s impossible to get work done. The open office is definitely to blame. Doors mean power. Closed doors mean “Do not interrupt” and “Think twice before knocking.”
Ensuring an interruption-free environment is key to getting things done and getting them done according to the deadline, which means a happy developer and rapid product development. And the whole team wins.
The problem with interruptionsBut … How do you get people to observe your interruption-free zone especially if you work in a company that has a little bit of everything in the same open space; marketing, sales, finance, accounting, human resources, IT, everything? How to get people to stick to your personal development schedule? Pleading, begging, putting up a permanent “Don’t interrupt” sign … that’s all well and good but its expiration date is a week or so because people forget.
“When you get into the zone, it’s great if you can stay there for as long as possible,” says Grega. “Writing code for new features, bug fixing, planning, it doesn’t matter, interruptions take time out of your day twice over: The first time when you’re interrupted and the second time when you’re trying to get back into the zone. You lose time and time means money.”
Sometimes you can be at work the whole day, doing your very best to get things done but you accomplish zilch or not nearly as much as you would have wanted.
Interruptions can cost you an additional 10, 20 minutes to get back to where you left off, pick up and take off into the world of code.
Because interruptions happen all the time, and because asking nicely (and then a little less nicely) doesn’t work and when even headphones fail (even though they scream do not interrupt and everyone knows that), you have to get inventive.
Our Technical Lead Grega carved out blocks of interruption-free time in his calendar, marked them “Development zone: Do not interrupt” and sent out an email saying this is how it is. That considerably reduced the number of “Hey, just one question”, “Hey, this will only take a minute”, “Hey, I just have this one little thing …” A few other developers jumped on the hack-your-calendar bandwagon and they were a happy bunch for some time but there’s no happily ever after in the developer’s life (sigh). What was missing was a signal board that would ward off the just-one-question crowd, a good guard dog.
It just so happens that Grega works on a display for reserving meeting rooms, which instantly became a personal timetable affixed to his table, showing his availability and simple messages or updates, such as “Bug fixing,” “Working on API,” “Developing but in desperate need of coffee.”
By entering his own email in Joan’s settings instead of an assigned room resource, the device displayed his schedule. Joan then sat next to him, feeding his coworkers information at a glance. Behold an instant, real-time signal board with advanced booking options set up in a minute.
People can also use the display to pull up Grega’s schedule and book some time with him later in the day when he’s free and not interrupt him when he’s deep in code. A simple hack for interruption-free days galore. And that’s it, folks.
P.S. While writing this article, I was interrupted 27 times, went for coffee twice and marveled at the irony of it all another 45 times. I have requested my own JOAN.
Grega Pusnik
Estera Dezelak
Comments
Please log in or sign up to comment.