Why developers hate being interrupted by Derek Johnson.
From the post:
Interruptions are to developers what kryptonite is to Superman—they kill productivity and there’s a significant recovery period.
There are two types of interruption: the planned meeting and the one where someone walks over to your desk to talk to you (or if you’re unlucky enough to have a desk phone it’s when the phone rings). The random interruption is akin to walking up to a someone building a lego tower, kicking it over and expecting them to continue from where they were the moment before you arrived. The planned meeting is a lot longer and kills productivity before, not just during and after. So, there are two types of problem that need addressed here.
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Not a new problem but Derek does a powerful retelling of it. Along with suggestions to reduce interruptions.
I like the headphone poster most of all.
If you actually implement one or more of the suggestions in Derek’s post, you may want to read Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Book length treatment on productivity based on real world results.
Hint: If you want 10X developers, start with a 10X development environment. You’ll get closer that way than by any other known method.
Even if you have very good developer conditions, problems can still occur:
In my years at Bell Labs, we worked in two-person offices. They were spacious, quiet, and the phone could be diverted. I shared my office with Wendl Thomis who went on to build a small empire as an electronic toy maker. In those days, he was working on the ESS fault dictionary. The dictionary scheme relied upon the notion of n-space proximity, a concept that was hairy enough to challenge even Wendl’s powers of concentration. One afternoon, I was bent over a program listing while Wendl was staring into space, his feet propped up on the desk. Our boss came in and asked, “Wendl! What are you doing?” Wendl said, “I’m thinking.” And the boss said, “Can’t you do that at home?”
Yeah, really don’t want to have people “thinking” on the job. 😉
PS: Developers complain about interruptions in forums I frequent but be aware that the same principles apply to authors, designers, engineers, lawyers, mathematicians, etc. I mention that as the basis for forming alliances at work to support sane work conditions for all departments. Equality of privilege attracts more allies.