4 ms·
Since you seem to be doing some kind of study on the topic: What I often feel is missing from the equation is the alternative cost: What value is lost from hav
by tpmx 7y ago
Since you seem to be doing some kind of study on the topic:
What I often feel is missing from the equation is the alternative cost: What value is lost from having a culture where it's not socially okay to interrupt a colleague?
I think any model that doesn't take this into consideration is mostly pointless.
The goal should be to identify the optimal number of interruptions. Obviously that's super hard to define, since it's all so dependent on so much state/knowledge etc in people's minds.
- bobbiechen 7y agoRight - I'm not saying that all interruptions are bad. But I do think unbounded interruptions is very likely to incur more cost than it's worth. Something is on fire and you need my help now, so definitely interrupt. But on the other hand, is it possible to create a culture where you email/Slack first for something unimportant, and tap on shoulders only if unacknowledged for some time? Or as in the Paul Graham "schedules" essay [1], try to chunk face-to-face questions into clear blocks of office hours? I think the face-to-face case is important because it's much harder to "set your status to do-not-disturb" in the physical world. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html