6 ms·

Curiously enough, in my experience, the vast majority of interruption I receive is not from "external sources" but rather from other developers, typically junio

Curiously enough, in my experience, the vast majority of interruption I receive is not from "external sources" but rather from other developers, typically junior members of the team seeking advice or guidance. I wonder how you would address that?

epochwolf 14y ago
I sit right next to a tester and he is a constant source of distraction.
- skrebbel 14y ago
  Did you ever bring it up?
  - epochwolf 14y ago
    Several times. I was told to allow him to interrupt me. :/
gpcz 14y ago
Part of that depends on the type of advice or guidance. Some of it might be a symptom of the project's bus factor being too low (inadequate documentation, ambiguities or holes in processes, etc), which your organization can fix by paying down some of that technical/process debt. Other forms of advice (career-related, higher-level tech stuff, etc) would seem more like a mentor role. For that stuff, you may want to schedule "mentor time" in a slot advantageous for yourself, such as the last hour of the day.
falcolas 14y ago
Assigned mentors, perhaps on a rotating schedule. If I know I'm bound to be interrupted (in my case by a pager), I do work that I know won't require more than 5-10 minutes in "the zone". The downside is that an assigned mentor will not get as much work done during that time.
bunderbunder 14y ago
Perhaps you deal with it by building it into the schedule: Set aside a specific time (or times) during the day where junior members have stand-up meetings with senior members. Hopefully getting the interruption onto the schedule would have the benefit of allowing everyone to plan for it and try to minimize its cost. And it might also encourage junior members to try and work through problems themselves first (because they have to save questions for scheduled question times), but also make them feel less like an imposition when they do seek advice.
wting 14y ago
I find intra-organization chat rooms useful. Developers on their down time can answer questions while busy devs can minimize the window and focus.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  This is my method if choice as well, it works well if you establish some basic rules of etiquette. - no flak - no flamewars - no jokes - no off-topic stuff If everybody sticks to those rules then it will work fantastic, if you don't guide that it will turn into a zoo and become huge distraction. We use a plain old IRC server + clients for this, nothing fancy.
  - mdpye 14y ago
    This. It was a new idea to me when I started at my current place, now I can't imagine living without it. We've also been through a merger with another similar sized company (with a very different culture, in a substantially different timezone) during my tenure, and evangelising the IRC network was a big thing. The difference in communication efficiency between teams who were quickly convinced that group chat was a positive vs those that weren't was pretty noticeable. The etiquette thing is important, and varies team by team. Our team has several channels to ourselves with varying levels of formality, and company wide channels similarly (#techteam, title line: "No banter" vs. #companyname, title line: <insert latest in-joke>) Not only does the group element allow anyone who's taking a quick break to offer some help, it often draws in advice from across the organisation, including people you'd never have thought of asking, who just happen to be dipping in to the channel at the time. Edit: The office wide "banter" channel's primary purpose most days (so like, not Friday afternoon) is the distribution of fresh coffee, prepared in 5 mug cafetieres, announced and claimed here. So many people have IRC bings on the word "coffee" that it's best discussed in some form of leet substitution if you're not offering to make some.
  - jpitz 14y ago
    I've tried, and failed, twice, to introduce IRC into organizations. The first organization wanted policy and procedures around logging all chats - ugh ( yes, I know how to set up logging bots.) At the second, I had most of the team balking on the 'ugliness' of (whatever) IRC client they installed and insisted we use campfire. I'm more than a little jaded at this point, and would love to hear if anyone has faced and solved these sorts of issues.

epochwolf 14y ago

I sit right next to a tester and he is a constant source of distraction.

skrebbel 14y ago
Did you ever bring it up?
- epochwolf 14y ago
  Several times. I was told to allow him to interrupt me. :/

gpcz 14y ago

Part of that depends on the type of advice or guidance. Some of it might be a symptom of the project's bus factor being too low (inadequate documentation, ambiguities or holes in processes, etc), which your organization can fix by paying down some of that technical/process debt. Other forms of advice (career-related, higher-level tech stuff, etc) would seem more like a mentor role. For that stuff, you may want to schedule "mentor time" in a slot advantageous for yourself, such as the last hour of the day.

falcolas 14y ago

Assigned mentors, perhaps on a rotating schedule. If I know I'm bound to be interrupted (in my case by a pager), I do work that I know won't require more than 5-10 minutes in "the zone". The downside is that an assigned mentor will not get as much work done during that time.

bunderbunder 14y ago

Perhaps you deal with it by building it into the schedule: Set aside a specific time (or times) during the day where junior members have stand-up meetings with senior members. Hopefully getting the interruption onto the schedule would have the benefit of allowing everyone to plan for it and try to minimize its cost. And it might also encourage junior members to try and work through problems themselves first (because they have to save questions for scheduled question times), but also make them feel less like an imposition when they do seek advice.

wting 14y ago

I find intra-organization chat rooms useful. Developers on their down time can answer questions while busy devs can minimize the window and focus.

jacquesm 14y ago
This is my method if choice as well, it works well if you establish some basic rules of etiquette. - no flak - no flamewars - no jokes - no off-topic stuff If everybody sticks to those rules then it will work fantastic, if you don't guide that it will turn into a zoo and become huge distraction. We use a plain old IRC server + clients for this, nothing fancy.
- mdpye 14y ago
  This. It was a new idea to me when I started at my current place, now I can't imagine living without it. We've also been through a merger with another similar sized company (with a very different culture, in a substantially different timezone) during my tenure, and evangelising the IRC network was a big thing. The difference in communication efficiency between teams who were quickly convinced that group chat was a positive vs those that weren't was pretty noticeable. The etiquette thing is important, and varies team by team. Our team has several channels to ourselves with varying levels of formality, and company wide channels similarly (#techteam, title line: "No banter" vs. #companyname, title line: <insert latest in-joke>) Not only does the group element allow anyone who's taking a quick break to offer some help, it often draws in advice from across the organisation, including people you'd never have thought of asking, who just happen to be dipping in to the channel at the time. Edit: The office wide "banter" channel's primary purpose most days (so like, not Friday afternoon) is the distribution of fresh coffee, prepared in 5 mug cafetieres, announced and claimed here. So many people have IRC bings on the word "coffee" that it's best discussed in some form of leet substitution if you're not offering to make some.
- jpitz 14y ago
  I've tried, and failed, twice, to introduce IRC into organizations. The first organization wanted policy and procedures around logging all chats - ugh ( yes, I know how to set up logging bots.) At the second, I had most of the team balking on the 'ugliness' of (whatever) IRC client they installed and insisted we use campfire. I'm more than a little jaded at this point, and would love to hear if anyone has faced and solved these sorts of issues.