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nancydsmithus · 5 years ago

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Better Design With Deep Thinking

Eric Olive

2019-11-13T11:00:00+00:00 2019-11-13T12:06:54+00:00

<p>Interruptions, administrative tasks, and too many meetings are among the common complaints voiced by today’s professionals. When was the last time someone complained about a canceled meeting? In other words, everyone understands what hinders productivity, right?</p> <p>Not so fast, says computer scientist Cal Newport. While we all realize that interruptions and fragmented time are troublesome, we fail to recognize:</p> <ul> <li>The frequency of interruptions: We convince ourselves that we are focusing on one task at a time, such as a complex interaction design problem. Yet, every ten minutes or so, we check email or answer a text. Yes, we’re performing one task at a time, but the <strong>duration</strong> of that task is brief.</li> <li>The cost of these interruptions: As Newport explains on a recent episode of <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=754336716">Hidden Brain</a>: “Even those very brief checks that switch your context even briefly can have this massive negative impact on your cognitive performance. It’s the <strong>switch itself that hurts</strong>, not how long you actually switch.” (Emphasis mine)</li> </ul> <p>This task switching was the focus of <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v109y2009i2p168-181.html">a study</a> by business professor Sophie Leroy. She gave participants a cognitively demanding activity, such as solving a puzzle, and then briefly interrupted them before they completed it. When they returned to the original task, their performance dropped. As Leroy explains, these “results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers.”</p> <p>Leroy calls this carryover from one activity to another “attention residue,” meaning that people are still thinking about the previous task even as they turn to the new one.</p> <p>The most effective way to avoid attention residue is to structure your work in a way that reduces interruptions. Such structure requires understanding the difference between deep and shallow work.</p> <div data-component="FeaturePanel" data-audience="non-subscriber" data-remove="true" class="feature-panel-container hidden"></div> <h3 id="deep-work-shallow-work-and-why-they-matter">Deep Work, Shallow Work, And Why They Matter</h3> <p>“Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task,” writes Newport in his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/B0189PVAWY/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=deep+work&qid=1570223166&sr=8-1">Deep Work</a>. This work allows us to absorb, understand, and act on complicated information. Examples including coding, complex project plans, user research, and sophisticated design work.</p> <p>Shallow work refers to tasks that do not require extensive thought and focus such as filling out expense reports and answering emails, texts, and Slack messages.</p> <p>Shallow tasks are necessary. The question is how much time to devote to shallow and deep work and how to structure work in a way that facilitates reflection and concentration.</p> <figure class=" break-out article__image "> <a href="https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png"> <img srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png 400w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_800/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png 800w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1200/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png 1200w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1600/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png 1600w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_2000/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png 2000w" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png" sizes="100vw" alt="Left image: Design is deep work. Right image: Filling out a checklist is shallow work." /> </a> <figcaption class="op-vertical-bottom"> Left: Design is deep work. Right: Filling out a checklist is shallow work. (Image credits: <a href='ttps://pixabay.com/photos/ux-design-webdesign-app-mobile-787980/'>FirmBee</a> | <a href='https://pixabay.com/photos/document-paper-office-composition-3271743/'>raw pixel</a>) (<a href='https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/5ea0e50e-8ad9-4775-8114-a586762772e6/design-checklist-photo-examples.png'>Large preview</a>) </figcaption> </figure> <h3 id="the-solution-five-practical-tips-for-pursuing-deep-work">The Solution: Five Practical Tips For Pursuing Deep Work</h3> <h4 id="tip-1-jump-into-design-work">Tip 1: Jump Into Design Work</h4> <p>Avoid the temptation to text or check email first thing. Put your phone on do not disturb. Get out your sketch pad or open your design tool and challenge yourself to solve one gnarly design problem by 10:00 am.</p> <p>While this tip sounds like common sense, it’s not quite so straightforward because we are conditioned to respond to signals around us: “External triggers are cues from our environment that tell us what to do next. These are the dings and pings that prompt us to check our email, answer a text, or look at a news alert,” explains habit expert Nir Eyal in a<a href="https://www.nirandfar.com/distractions/"> post about distraction</a>.</p> <p>Eyal continues: “Competition for our attention can come from a person as well, such as an interruption from a coworker when we are in the middle of doing focused work.”</p> <p>Computer scientist Cal Newport expands on this point by explaining the biology behind the itch to respond. When we don’t reply promptly to a text or email, we feel like we are ignoring someone from our tribe. Emotionally, it’s the modern-day equivalent of ignoring someone who is tapping on our shoulder as we sit around the fire. In short, it’s difficult to ignore messages and requests from co-workers.</p> <p>Difficult but not impossible. Extend jumping into design work by blocking out untouchable time on your calendar. What about emergencies? “The short answer is that there really never are any,” writes podcaster and New York Times bestselling author, Neil Pasricha in<a href="https://hbr.org/2018/03/why-you-need-an-untouchable-day-every-week?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social"> Why You Need an Untouchable Day Every Week</a>. These untouchable days involve deep, creative work.</p> <p>While most professionals cannot set aside an entire day each week, they can mark two-hour blocks on their calendar a few times each week. Colleagues simply see “busy” when viewing your calendar. While not foolproof, this quiet signal shows that you know how to manage your time in order to engage in the deep work that your job requires.</p> <div class="sponsors__lead-place"></div> <h4 id="tip-2-kickstart-your-brain-with-useful-questions">Tip 2: Kickstart Your Brain With Useful Questions</h4> <p>By definition, deep work takes time and considerable brain resources. Sometimes we need a cognitive boost before tackling the problem head-on. When this is the case, ease into deep work by composing a list of questions to stimulate reflection. For example:</p> <ul> <li>What is the organization trying to accomplish?</li> <li>How does this site, product, or app align with that goal?</li> <li>If revising an existing design: What would I do differently if I could recreate the design from scratch?</li> <li>What would I do now if there were no legacy system constraints?</li> </ul> <p>Note that these questions involve design but also encourage reflection beyond the immediate design challenge. The latter is important because the longer you work on a product or project, the easier it is to develop design blinders.</p> <figure class=" "> <a href="https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png"> <img srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png 400w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_800/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png 800w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1200/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png 1200w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1600/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png 1600w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_2000/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png 2000w" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png" sizes="100vw" alt="" /> </a> <figcaption class="op-vertical-bottom"> Kickstart your brain (Image credit: <a href='https://pixabay.com/illustrations/brain-biology-abstract-cerebrum-951874/'>geralt</a>) (<a href='https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/30f0c810-a893-49ae-a33a-4f1c9fde9a63/better-design-deep-thinking-4-brain.png'>Large preview</a>) </figcaption> </figure> <p>Easing into deep work or jumping in with both feet are often useful as long as it’s possible to avoid those nettlesome distractions. Even so, everyone gets stuck and needs time to regroup and let the mind wander.</p> <h4 id="tip-3-schedule-unstructured-thinking-time">Tip 3: Schedule Unstructured Thinking Time</h4> <p>Just as designers and other professionals need time to think through complex problems, they also need time to let the mind wander. The reason is the science behind “shower moments,” when ideas seem to arrive out of the blue.</p> <p>In fact, the brain needs time for incubation, the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/media-spotlight/201304/letting-your-mind-wander">psychological term for the unconscious recombination of thought</a> processes after they are stimulated by conscious mental effort such as working on a specific design problem. In other words, when you set aside a strenuous mental task and do something less demanding, the brain is able to process and organize your thoughts to form new ideas.</p> <p>Effective leaders value unstructured thinking time as outlined in <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/09/how-to-regain-the-lost-art-of-reflection">How to Regain the Art of Lost Reflection</a>. Jeff Weiner, CEO at LinkedIn, blocks at least 90 minutes for reflection and describes these buffers as “the single most important productivity tool” he uses. Susan Hakkarainen, Chairman and co-CEO of Lutron Electronics, uses 40-minute walks to reflect explaining that “Thinking is the one thing you can’t outsource as a leader. Holding this time sacred in my schedule despite the deluge of calls, meetings, and emails is essential.”</p> <p>In short, designers should take their cues from these business leaders. Give your brain a break.</p> <div class="sponsors__lead-place"></div> <h4 id="tip-4-vote-it-off-the-island">Tip 4: Vote It Off The Island</h4> <p>This tip comes from the Harvard Business Review article <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/06/stop-doing-low-value-work">Stop Doing Low-Value Work</a> by Priscilla Claman. She cites the example of a controller who was producing monthly reports that nobody read. He sent a list to his colleagues asking them to identify the three or four most important reports. He simply stopped writing the reports that no one was reading.</p> <p>Another approach is to request permission to not do something such as asking customers if they really want their receipts. The point, writes Claman, is to stop doing something that is not important but to ask first to avoid getting in trouble. <strong>It’s vital that we stop ourselves from doing unimportant work</strong>.</p> <p>Designers can identify possibly unimportant work by asking if:</p> <ul> <li>Every wireframe must include detailed annotations;</li> <li>Every design deliverable must include a detailed design document;</li> <li>It’s really necessary to produce many variations of a design when studies <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-More-Less-Revised/dp/0062449923/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13SFCOP3RXGW0&keywords=barry+schwartz+the+paradox+of+choice&qid=1570220933&sprefix=barry+schwartz%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-1">about choice</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12189991_When_Choice_is_Demotivating_Can_One_Desire_Too_Much_of_a_Good_Thing">decision making</a> show that too many options make it harder to reach a decision.</li> </ul> <p>No one wants to feel as if their work is sitting on a virtual shelf. By asking clients and stakeholders what matters to them, you’ll cater to their needs and save time by discarding unnecessary tasks.</p> <p>The next step is to assess the remaining important work to determine how much time you can, and should, devote to deep thinking.</p> <h4 id="tip-5-distinguish-deep-and-shallow-work">Tip 5: Distinguish Deep And Shallow Work</h4> <p>Follow the steps below to make this assessment concrete, something you can point to and share with your boss.</p> <ol> <li>Identify the activities that you consider deep work such as planning a usability test, drawing wireframes, or mocking up a prototype.</li> <li>Identify shallow work activities like answering emails, attending administrative meetings or meetings tangentially related to your core responsibilities.</li> <li>Estimate the amount of time you spend on deep and shallow work each week.</li> <li>Meet with your boss for thirty minutes and ask her what she thinks the ratio of deep to shallow work should be. Ask for a specific number. If you disagree, politely ask if you may experiment with a different ratio for one month.</li> <li>Then, stick to the agreed-upon number for one month. Document any changes to your productivity, anything that contributes to a better product or service. After one month, report these findings to your boss.</li> </ol> <p>This approach offers two advantages:</p> <ul> <li>It’s usually wise to solicit the boss’s support.</li> <li>A single proposal about deep work will not change an entire organization. Involving management, however, can serve as a catalyst for broader change just as the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X/ref=asc_df_150112174X/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=266094129756&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4697014055740886414&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9032434&hvtargid=pla-436091533585&psc=1">Google Ventures Design Sprint</a> influenced the design process at Google and beyond.</li> </ul> <h3 id="why-deep-work-makes-everything-better">Why Deep Work Makes Everything Better</h3> <p>Deep work allows designers and developers to thrive by leveraging their skills to solve complex problems and create better products and designs. Better products are likely to boost the bottom line while thriving and highly satisfied employees are more likely to stay (reducing turnover) and put their best selves forward.</p> <p>Perhaps the best news for employers is that deep work does not require adding staff. The solution, explains computer scientist Cal Newport, is to <strong>re-configure work and communication</strong>. In other words, it’s not more people; it’s the same people managing work differently.</p> <p>For example, agencies often answer to clients and need to be available at a moment’s notice. Rather than require every employee to be tethered to a phone or laptop, Newport suggests assigning a different employee each day to a dedicated email or a special “bat phone.” This shows the client their importance to the agency while also allowing designers to concentrate on designing, building, and solving problems.</p> <h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3> <p>Deep work is the ability to focus on challenging tasks like design and coding. Frequent interruptions make deep work nearly impossible and impose a high financial cost. In this piece, we’ve described five tips for maximizing the time you devote to deep work.</p> <ol> <li><strong>Jump into design work.</strong><br /> Draw fresh wireframes or work on a new design problem before checking emails and Slack messages. Block two-hour chunks on your calendar to allow time for deep thinking.</li> <li><strong>Kickstart your brain with useful questions.</strong><br /> Take a few minutes to ask what you are trying to accomplish and how it aligns with the company’s keep performance indicators (KPIs). Alignment with KPIs is especially important for user experience designers who are frequently asked to justify their budget</li> <li><strong>Schedule unstructured thinking time.</strong><br /> Take a walk, stare out the window, or whatever allows your mind to wander. This “downtime” allows the brain to form new connections.</li> <li><strong>Vote it off the island.</strong><br /> Are you writing reports that no one reads? Are you scheduling meetings that your co-workers find less than useful? Ask your colleagues if it’s okay to stop. They might respond with a gleeful “yes!”</li> <li><strong>Distinguish deep and shallow work.</strong><br /> Then, meet with your boss to arrive at the right balance between these two types of work.</li> </ol> <h4><span class="rh">Further Reading</span> on SmashingMag:</h4> <ul> <li><a title="Read 'How People Make Decisions'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/02/human-decision-making/" rel="bookmark">How People Make Decisions</a></li> <li><a title="Read 'Maximizing The Design Sprint'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/11/maximizing-design-sprint/" rel="bookmark">Maximizing The Design Sprint</a></li> <li><a title="Read 'Creating Online Environments That Work Well For Older Users'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/online-environments-older-users/" rel="bookmark">Creating Online Environments That Work Well For Older Users</a></li> <li><a title="Read 'User Experience Psychology And Performance: SmashingConf Videos'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/08/smashingconf-ux-videos/" rel="bookmark">SmashingConf Videos: User Experience Psychology And Performance</a></li> </ul> <div class="signature"> <img src="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/images/logo/logo--red.png" alt="Smashing Editorial"> <span>(ah, il)</span> </div>

from Web Designing And Development https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/better-design-deep-thinking/

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nancydsmithus · 5 years ago

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Adapting Agile For Part-Time Teams

Philip Kiely

2019-11-12T12:00:00+00:00 2019-11-12T12:59:27+00:00

<p>The formal notion of the Agile software development method is about as old as I am (the Agile Manifesto was published in February 2001). I point this out not to <a href="https://xkcd.com/1686/">make you feel old</a>, but instead to demonstrate that Agile has had a long time to infiltrate software development. While the methodology advocates for “co-located, dedicated teams,” in its ubiquity Agile is frequently applied to teams partially or fully composed of part-time workers. While there are lessons to be taken from the practice, Agile must be adapted to support, rather than hinder, part-time teams.</p> <p>In this article, we’ll consider applying Agile to a team of 5-10 people each working 20 hours per week on a project. We’ll further consider the frequent intersection of remote work with part-time teams and discuss situations where contributors work as few as 5 hours per week on a project. We’ll also hear from professors Armando Fox at the University of California, Berkeley and Barbara Johnson at Grinnell College with their thoughts on part-time Agile teams.</p> <h3 id="why-does-part-time-work-happen">Why Does Part-Time Work Happen?</h3> <p>While the “5 developers for 20 hours” example may seem contrived, many situations lead to the scenario. You may have:</p> <ul> <li>Developers assigned to multiple clients, projects, or teams within a single company,</li> <li>A team with contractors or co-op interns,</li> <li>Volunteers working on an open-source or community project, or</li> <li>An after-hours team working on a startup or product.</li> </ul> <p>While we will examine the many challenges involved in managing teams under these constraints, usually the alternative to working part-time with someone isn’t their full-time efforts, the alternative is not being able to work with them at all. While part-time workers and teams often require extensive compromises, with clear and effective management they can still be a huge net positive to a team and business.</p> <div data-component="FeaturePanel" data-audience="non-subscriber" data-remove="true" class="feature-panel-container hidden"></div> <h3 id="tenets-of-agile">Tenets Of Agile</h3> <p>Given its prevalence in the software development industry, everyone understands Agile slightly differently. To get through adapting the framework together, we need a shared vocabulary to define “regular” Agile, you know, the kind that advocates for “dedicated, co-located teams.” Agile implements practices, rituals, and roles to promote effective work.</p> <p>Agile, as implemented, involves certain practices:</p> <ul> <li>“Sprints” are discrete units of time, often 2 weeks, that determine the cycle of work for Agile teams.</li> <li>“Stories” or “user stories” are well-scoped units of work that a single team member can complete in some fraction of the sprint.</li> <li>Often, teams organize their stories on “kanban boards” or similar methods of tracking story state: to do, in progress, in review, and done in a given sprint.</li> </ul> <p>Agile revolves around four rituals:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Sprint Planning</strong><br /> This is a meeting that opens each sprint with writing, estimating, prioritizing, and assigning stories that the team intends to complete for the sprint.</li> <li><strong>Daily Stand-Up</strong><br /> A chance for teams to meet every day to discuss the previous day’s progress, discuss the day’s work, and raise any roadblocks. Ideally, the meeting is very short (5-15 minutes) and is near the start of the workday to minimize the interruption of dedicated work time.</li> <li><strong>Sprint Review</strong><br /> This is part of a meeting which ends each sprint with a review of work accomplished, new backlog items, missed estimates, and other quantifiers of team progress.</li> <li><strong>Sprint Retrospective</strong><br /> A discrete meeting or block of time for discussing what went well and what to improve about how the team operates in qualitative terms.</li> </ol> <p>Agile teams usually have distinct, cross-functional roles. Common roles include:</p> <ul> <li>The “project manager/team lead” manages the team, assigns work, reports to management, assists team members, and performs other managerial duties.</li> <li>The “scrum master” is responsible for leading Agile rituals.</li> <li>A “product owner/product manager” represents the client or end-user to the team. They have an active hand in writing stories, reviewing product functionality, and communicating progress to clients and expectations to the team.</li> <li>An “individual contributor” is any member of the team whose main responsibility is building the product. Developers, designers, QA specialists and writers are all examples of individual contributors.</li> </ul> <p>While these definitions are important for our shared understanding, the major theme of this article is that achieving your team’s goals is more important than implementing “proper” Agile. If this doesn’t exactly match your setup, common elements should help apply upcoming recommendations to your experience.</p> <figure class=" "> <a href="https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg"> <img srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg 400w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_800/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg 800w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1200/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg 1200w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1600/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg 1600w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_2000/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg 2000w" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg" sizes="70vw" alt="'Scrum Board' by İrfan Simsar on Unsplash" /> </a> <figcaption class="op-vertical-bottom"> (Image credit: ‘İrfan Simsar’ on <a href='https://unsplash.com/'>Unsplash</a>) (<a href='https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/e0200d18-740a-45d3-ab60-096581b5d70b/board-irfan-simsar-unsplash.jpg'>Large preview</a>) </figcaption> </figure> <h3 id="constraints-of-part-time-work">Constraints Of Part-Time Work</h3> <p>Immediately, we see how the constraints of part-time work cut into standard Agile. First off, in a given two-week sprint, each employee may spend 2 hours in sprint planning, 10 times 15 minutes in stand-up, 1 hour in sprint review, and 30 minutes in sprint retrospective, for a total of 6 hours in Agile meetings. For a full-time employee, that’s only 7.5% of their 80-hour fortnight, for a half-time employee it doubles to 15%. Add in other meetings and account for context switching and suddenly your individual contributors have very little time left each week to individually contribute.</p> <p>Thus, part-time work exacerbates the need for good capacity estimation and up-front planning while reducing the time available for it. Fortunately, Agile’s notion of story points applies well. Story points estimate effort rather than time and thus stay constantly effective between full-time and part-time workers, though of course part-time workers will take longer to achieve the same amount of story points, which you can account for by measuring the team’s velocity.</p> <p>Even if your development team is part-time, your clients may not be. Customer support, emergency bug fixes, outage repairs, and even regular communication can be more difficult with part-time work adding additional overhead.</p> <figure class=" "> <a href="https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg"> <img srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg 400w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_800/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg 800w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1200/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg 1200w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1600/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg 1600w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_2000/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg 2000w" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg" sizes="100vw" alt="'Man in a watch typing' by Brad Neathery on Unsplash" /> </a> <figcaption class="op-vertical-bottom"> (Image credit: ‘Brad Neathery’ on <a href='https://unsplash.com/'>Unsplash</a>) (<a href='https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/107f0a17-6c3c-4678-ae1c-d67d231d80c4/watch-brad-neathery-unsplash.jpg'>Large preview</a>) </figcaption> </figure> <div class="sponsors__lead-place"></div> <h3 id="frequently-intersecting-constraints">Frequently Intersecting Constraints</h3> <p>While not all part-time teams will experience these additional challenges, in my experience part-time work often overlaps with remote work, different time zones and availabilities, and classification of workers as temporary, contractors, or interns instead of employees. This is not an article about any of these things, but they bear mentioning.</p> <p>Part-time work adds significant overhead to the already difficult task of finding a regular time when everyone is available to meet. If some team members work in the mornings and others in the evenings or are located across the world from each other, scheduling quickly becomes impossible. GitLab has published <a href="https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/">extensive documentation on remote communication</a> that might be helpful.</p> <p>Working with contractors, student interns, temporary hires, or other non-permanent teams or team members brings its own advantages and challenges. That said, however, someone got to the table, the Agile framework treats them as an equal member of the team and stakeholder in the project.</p> <figure class=" "> <a href="https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg"> <img srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg 400w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_800/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg 800w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1200/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg 1200w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1600/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg 1600w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_2000/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg 2000w" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg" sizes="100vw" alt="'Untitled' (Meeting) by You X Ventures on Unsplash." /> </a> <figcaption class="op-vertical-bottom"> (Image credit: ‘You X Ventures’ on <a href='https://unsplash.com/'>Unsplash</a>) (<a href='https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/7abbdc79-3c84-487b-a3b9-c9b9d099b3d6/meeting-you-x-ventures-unsplash.jpg'>Large preview</a>) </figcaption> </figure> <h3 id="redefining-rituals-for-part-time-teams">Redefining Rituals For Part-Time Teams</h3> <p>Now that we’ve framed the challenges that part-time work creates, let’s focus on solutions. While I’ve seen a number of successful modifications to Agile rituals for part-time teams, I reached out to Professor Armando Fox, co-author of <em>Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Approach Using Cloud Computing</em> with David Patterson. In an email interview, he emphasized two key goals of agile rituals to retain:</p> <blockquote>“The reason Agile is a good fit [for part-time teams] is the idea of using user stories as the unit of work. The key to doing this successfully is up-front planning and continuous check-ins.”<br /><br />— Armando Fox</blockquote> <p>Sprint planning condenses up-front planning to a single high-value meeting. For part-time teams, the product owner, scrum master, and team lead (who may be only one or two people, more on that later) should do as much pre-meeting work as possible to define well-scoped tickets for the individual contributors to estimate and take. Fox said “if stories are tightly-circumscribed, branches are short-lived, stories require modest amounts of code that can be delivered with good test coverage, and code quality is maintained through continuous code review (pull requests) as well as the use of code quality measurement tools, the team can successfully divide-and-conquer even if they’re not always working at the same time.” That’s definitely a lot of “if” statements, working in this manner will take dedicated effort from the entire team, but should result in a quality product.</p> <p>The other half of the equation is continuous check-ins. Agile’s daily stand-ups work great for co-located full-time teams, if everyone’s in the office by 9 or 10 AM the meeting happens more or less naturally. It’s tempting to replace this with an asynchronous check, like status-report emails, but Fox advocates that teams stick to the ritual. “The team needs to check-in frequently — we recommend daily 5-minute stand-ups — so that any red flags can be spotted early. Even part-time teams can find 5 minutes a day that the whole team is available. Email isn’t good for this; an interactive meeting, where people can also mention blocking items and others can immediately speak up with suggestions, is the best format,” he wrote.</p> <p>For a part-time team, it may also be tempting to do away with regular meetings entirely and rely solely on the start and end of sprint check-ins. Fox warns that “every team [that he has] coached at Berkeley has said that they quickly realized that once-a-week team meetings were nowhere near enough to keep everyone on the same page.”</p> <p>Sprint reviews and retrospectives are important components of Agile. If teams do not regularly evaluate their working practices and performance, bad interactions will continue unchecked and discontent will grow. However, the velocity measurement and end-of-sprint re-assignment tasks can be handled by the scrum master outside of meeting times, and the team leader can use one-on-one meetings and their perception of team mood in stand-ups and sprint planning to reduce the need for sprint review and retrospective.</p> <p>If you absolutely need to cut back on the number and duration of Agile meetings, cut review and retrospective first. That said, it is important to celebrate the team’s progress each sprint and give people space to air grievances. A decent compromise can be to extend the last stand-up of each sprint to accomplish this communication within the team.</p> <div class="sponsors__lead-place"></div> <h3 id="defining-roles-on-a-part-time-agile-team">Defining Roles On A Part-Time Agile Team</h3> <p>This section depends entirely on the composition of the team. However, there are a few useful heuristics for assigning roles. Responsibilities assigned should minimize communication overhead (which scales worse-than-linearly with team size), fit individual contributors’ abilities, and account for team members’ schedules and availability.</p> <p>For this section, I turned to Professor Barbara Johnson, who teaches a team software development course that I am currently enrolled in at Grinnell College. She wrote “I have sometimes seen teams come to rely upon what might be called a ‘chief organizer’ who combines the roles of not only a scrum master (who organizes the team) but also the product owner (who coordinates and documents the client’s needs and feedback). This lessens the cognitive overhead of the rest of the team, who then can focus more on moving the project’s code and testing suite forward with each iteration.” This matches my experience with part-time teams.</p> <p>If possible, condense the managerial positions (team lead, product manager, scrum master) into a single role and assign that role to the “fullest-time” team member. If you have a team of 10 where only 1 person is full-time or otherwise has greater availability, that person should have as many organizational and communication responsibilities as feasible. Part-time teams require just as much communication as full-time teams and an even greater logistical effort, so concentrating that work in one person massively reduces communication overhead.</p> <p>However, frequently this isn’t possible, either because no one has extra availability or because those people are better suited to individual contributor roles. In that case, I still advocate for condensing managerial responsibilities as much as possible but breaking the product owner back out into its own role. In this case, it’s important to be realistic when estimating how much further work these people will be able to do on user stories considering their other work for the team and client.</p> <p>Most of the members of the part-time team will be individual contributors. There are two competing philosophies for individual contributors: generalist teams and teams of specialists. Imagine that your team is developing a web application. A generalist team would be composed of entirely full-stack developers. These developers would never be blocked on others’ work as, in theory, they are equally comfortable on anything from design to deployment. Alternately, if a designer, front-end engineer, back-end engineer, and site reliability engineer comprise a team, they will be fast and effective at their own work because they only spend their time on the thing that they’re best at.</p> <p>As a team organizer, you may find yourself with a team of generalists, a team of specialists, or a mix. Putting together a part-time team of solid performers is hard enough without restricting yourself to one type of individual contributor, so, fortunately, both types bring something useful to the table. If you can recognize which of your individual contributors are generalists and which are specialists, you can assign tasks more effectively to maximize the impact of their limited work time.</p> <p>Finally, on teams where people are working ten or fewer hours per week, it is tempting to throw out roles entirely and just say “do what you can.” Per our theme, these super-part-time teams need even more structured communication but have even less time for it. If everyone has such limited, scattered availability that you cannot justify assigning roles at all, it’s probably worth re-examining the structure, goals, and feasibility of the project.</p> <figure class=" "> <a href="https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg"> <img srcset="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg 400w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_800/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg 800w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1200/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg 1200w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_1600/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg 1600w, https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_2000/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg 2000w" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/indysigner/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto/w_400/https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg" sizes="100vw" alt="'At the bustling Times Square' by Saulo Mohana on Unsplash" /> </a> <figcaption class="op-vertical-bottom"> (Image credit: ‘Saulo Mohana’ on <a href='https://unsplash.com/'>Unsplash</a>) (<a href='https://cloud.netlifyusercontent.com/assets/344dbf88-fdf9-42bb-adb4-46f01eedd629/6f510c00-a18e-41c2-87fc-899948283ffe/man-saulo-mohana-unsplash.jpg'>Large preview</a>) </figcaption> </figure> <h3 id="client-communication">Client Communication</h3> <p>Software development is slow, complex work, and part-time teams only magnify that truth. Agile includes the client in the process by writing user stories, rapid prototyping, a quick release schedule, and consistent communication.</p> <p>As a part-time team, communicate reasonable expectations to the client. For a half-time team, remember that development time is cut by more than half, build an extra buffer into doubled estimates. As development time is limited, it is critical to solicit complete, accurate specifications when meeting with the client or end-users to avoid wasting your efforts.</p> <p>Don’t let part-time work make you fall behind on client communication. Even if there is very little progress to report, soliciting regular feedback and posting updates at a reasonable cadence should increase the client’s patience with the slow development pace.</p> <h3 id="conclusion-goals-methods">Conclusion: Goals > Methods</h3> <p>You can get a lot done in a part-time schedule. Outside of coding, 10-20 hours per week is enough time to train for a first marathon. With a strong team and good working practices, it is enough time to bring a great product to the market. Using Agile to encourage up-front planning and continuous check-ins with user stories, regular stand-ups, and well-defined roles will allow even part-time teams to overcome communication barriers and work effectively towards a shared goal.</p> <h4><span class="rh">Further Reading</span> on SmashingMag:</h4> <ul> <li><a title="Read 'Bringing A Healthy Code Review Mindset To Your Team'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/06/bringing-healthy-code-review-mindset/" rel="bookmark">Bringing A Healthy Code Review Mindset To Your Team</a></li> <li><a title="Read 'Creating Authentic Human Connections Within A Remote Team'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/08/creating-authentic-human-connections-remote-team/" rel="bookmark">Creating Authentic Human Connections Within A Remote Team</a></li> <li><a title="Read 'Building Diverse Design Teams To Drive Innovation'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/building-diverse-design-teams-innovation/" rel="bookmark">Building Diverse Design Teams To Drive Innovation</a></li> <li><a title="Read 'The Case For Brand Systems: Aligning Teams Around A Common Story'" href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/06/case-brand-systems-align-teams/" rel="bookmark">The Case For Brand Systems: Aligning Teams Around A Common Story</a></li> </ul> <div class="signature"> <img src="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/images/logo/logo--red.png" alt="Smashing Editorial"> <span>(dm, yk, il)</span> </div>

from Web Designing And Development https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2019/11/adapting-agile-part-time-teams/

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