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I took this to heart when it was published and ensured I schedule full team meetings that are as short as possible, and either start a day, end a day, or are di

I took this to heart when it was published and ensured I schedule full team meetings that are as short as possible, and either start a day, end a day, or are directly adjacent to lunch. I also ensure there are 2 days of no scheduled meetings. Another thing that helped me as an IC was keeping notes as a habit. It needs to become ingrained enough that it isn't blocking flow to jot a note into OneNote or Evernote. This allows you to 'see' the interruptions later. I'm more of a 'pile' based note taker, so it's a gigantic list of timestamps + notes. If you are getting too many interruptions it also provides highly detailed 'proof' to the person in charge. More recently I realized that getting distracted today is tremendously easier than it was in the past. When I find that is an issue I set a meditation timer to ring a bell every 5 minutes. If I'm not doing what I want to be doing when that bell goes off, I just go back to doing what I planned. At a certain point the bell ringing is just a habit to ensure your attention is in the right place.

justherefortart 8y ago
I took over as IT Director at a company with a small team. Everyone would take their issues to the developer all day long, interrupting his day constantly. So every new "fire" because the latest task. Not surprisingly the hacked together new website (which went live months late and $100s of Ks over budget) was a train wreck. Unreliable and constantly causing errors/issues. The first thing I did was said the only person that can talk to the development team is me. It took about 2 months to get all the software processes in place that were non-existent, to get the entire website working and stable, and to get our task/goal list under control. The cocksucker owner comes to me and says "I want these 4 project you quoted that would take 6 months done in the next 3 months". So I quit (so did their lead developer that was doing 90% of the heavy lifting). IT Management is a mess everywhere I've ever been, just to varying degrees. Maybe this is because most my career has been as a consultant or contractor, but it's really discouraging.
- woqe 8y ago
  I just finished reading the Phoenix Project, and I wanted to say the beginning of this post read almost exactly like the first 3/4's of the book. https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/0988262592 https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine...
- curun1r 8y ago
  I hope you didn't jump straight to quitting. There may have been a legitimate need to launch something that quickly. When I get requests like that, I usually explain the immutable rule of software development... deadline, quality, scope: pick two. Since he wants to adjust the deadline, ask him which of the other two he'll compromise. One answer, quality, would probably lead me to quit, since I can't stand delivering stuff that sucks, but if he were willing to adjust scope of those projects, it's a completely reasonable request.
  - flukus 8y ago
    IME sacrificing quality almost always pushes out a deadline and costs, sometimes for decades. Low quality means constant firefighting will interrupt everything else.
  - justherefortart 8y ago
    The company was a hard sell for me to even take the job in the first place. The owner is a piece of shit human being. Once I saw the inside, it's likely even illegal what they're doing. So no, I didn't jump. I had to be persuaded to take the job in the first place. Life is too short for bullshit. I delivered what I said I would, and when they didn't live up to their end of the bargain, they faced the consequences I told them they would when I was hired.
  - beat 8y ago
    As a slightly pedantic aside, I prefer Kent Beck's observation that the triangle is time, scope, resources, with quality independent of those three. Of course, quality can be sacrificed in the short term to improve time or scope, but the impact is so gruesomely negative to their long-term prospects that it should simply never be done. Resources as a leg also lines up with the observation from The Mythical Man-Month that adding resources to a late project makes it later. (I have experienced this directly.) So resources are rarely mutable to a significant degree; you have the team you have and the budget you have - and you really do not want to see what happens when you suddenly get an unlimited budget! So I tend to phrase it as every project is either scope-bound or schedule-bound. One of those can flex - which one? If you can't flex either, you will probably fail.
- cpach 8y ago
  Don’t use slurs like that here.
chx 8y ago
We found start of the day to be really great and easier to schedule.
- kristianov 8y ago
  My experience is that start-of-day meeting only works for a team of morning people or they all have kids. People show up at work at different times, and their day start at different times.
  - chx 8y ago
    Erring on the side of people who have kids is something I gladly do. I do not have kids but if occassionally I need to attend a 10am meeting, that's fair. I can go back to sleep after if I need to.
- chrisbennet 8y ago
  Morning seems pretty common for stand-ups. Personally, I try to do my heavy cognitive tasks in the morning (so not a fan). I think that some managers use morning meetings as a way to make sure people come in to work on the managers schedule. Mornings are my “thinking” time. The good idea/solution comes to me in the shower or while I’m sleeping and I drive to work thinking about it. I’m usually able to get a good start on implementing it before people can interrupt me.
kovek 8y ago
I just wanted to share that I also had success setting a regular timer woth a short period: 3 minutes. If I do not notice the timer (it's just a small sound), then I am focused on my work. If I do hear i, then I realize that I am distracted and give myself 3 to 6 minutes (1 to two timers) of meditation or distraction, depending on what I feel I need at that moment.

justherefortart 8y ago

I took over as IT Director at a company with a small team. Everyone would take their issues to the developer all day long, interrupting his day constantly. So every new "fire" because the latest task. Not surprisingly the hacked together new website (which went live months late and $100s of Ks over budget) was a train wreck. Unreliable and constantly causing errors/issues. The first thing I did was said the only person that can talk to the development team is me. It took about 2 months to get all the software processes in place that were non-existent, to get the entire website working and stable, and to get our task/goal list under control. The cocksucker owner comes to me and says "I want these 4 project you quoted that would take 6 months done in the next 3 months". So I quit (so did their lead developer that was doing 90% of the heavy lifting). IT Management is a mess everywhere I've ever been, just to varying degrees. Maybe this is because most my career has been as a consultant or contractor, but it's really discouraging.

woqe 8y ago
I just finished reading the Phoenix Project, and I wanted to say the beginning of this post read almost exactly like the first 3/4's of the book. https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/0988262592 https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Busine...
curun1r 8y ago
I hope you didn't jump straight to quitting. There may have been a legitimate need to launch something that quickly. When I get requests like that, I usually explain the immutable rule of software development... deadline, quality, scope: pick two. Since he wants to adjust the deadline, ask him which of the other two he'll compromise. One answer, quality, would probably lead me to quit, since I can't stand delivering stuff that sucks, but if he were willing to adjust scope of those projects, it's a completely reasonable request.
- flukus 8y ago
  IME sacrificing quality almost always pushes out a deadline and costs, sometimes for decades. Low quality means constant firefighting will interrupt everything else.
- justherefortart 8y ago
  The company was a hard sell for me to even take the job in the first place. The owner is a piece of shit human being. Once I saw the inside, it's likely even illegal what they're doing. So no, I didn't jump. I had to be persuaded to take the job in the first place. Life is too short for bullshit. I delivered what I said I would, and when they didn't live up to their end of the bargain, they faced the consequences I told them they would when I was hired.
- beat 8y ago
  As a slightly pedantic aside, I prefer Kent Beck's observation that the triangle is time, scope, resources, with quality independent of those three. Of course, quality can be sacrificed in the short term to improve time or scope, but the impact is so gruesomely negative to their long-term prospects that it should simply never be done. Resources as a leg also lines up with the observation from The Mythical Man-Month that adding resources to a late project makes it later. (I have experienced this directly.) So resources are rarely mutable to a significant degree; you have the team you have and the budget you have - and you really do not want to see what happens when you suddenly get an unlimited budget! So I tend to phrase it as every project is either scope-bound or schedule-bound. One of those can flex - which one? If you can't flex either, you will probably fail.
cpach 8y ago
Don’t use slurs like that here.

chx 8y ago

We found start of the day to be really great and easier to schedule.

kristianov 8y ago
My experience is that start-of-day meeting only works for a team of morning people or they all have kids. People show up at work at different times, and their day start at different times.
- chx 8y ago
  Erring on the side of people who have kids is something I gladly do. I do not have kids but if occassionally I need to attend a 10am meeting, that's fair. I can go back to sleep after if I need to.
chrisbennet 8y ago
Morning seems pretty common for stand-ups. Personally, I try to do my heavy cognitive tasks in the morning (so not a fan). I think that some managers use morning meetings as a way to make sure people come in to work on the managers schedule. Mornings are my “thinking” time. The good idea/solution comes to me in the shower or while I’m sleeping and I drive to work thinking about it. I’m usually able to get a good start on implementing it before people can interrupt me.

kovek 8y ago

I just wanted to share that I also had success setting a regular timer woth a short period: 3 minutes. If I do not notice the timer (it's just a small sound), then I am focused on my work. If I do hear i, then I realize that I am distracted and give myself 3 to 6 minutes (1 to two timers) of meditation or distraction, depending on what I feel I need at that moment.