When I came out with this title I realised that it is completely in opposition to a title of a great post by Paweł Brodziński that was published almost a year ago. While I agree that having the right behaviours in place in a team is the goal, it’s important to understand the pitfalls of having too much in progress. The topic has been discussed bazillion times already, yet I’d like to add to it by allowing you to experience it by playing with a simulator. I’ve learned that this is more helpful than just talking about Little’s Law.
But before we discuss Little’s Law, let’s take a look at other aspects of having too much work in progress, that are also very important.
Multitasking
Multitasking is quite a popular topic, which has been studied by many scientists. Studies differ in their conclusions – some state that you can lose 10 IQ points due to distractions like notifications, some say that because of context switching you can produce lower quality products, others focus on impact to learning ability, another points out the amounts of stress caused by this phenomena. All those studies have one thing in common – multitasking is counterproductive. If you’re interested in more detail, check out Wikipedia or this article.
To see that in action, you can try a little exercise (originally published by Dave Crenshaw): Continue reading Limit Your Work In Progress!
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