Management sins? Come on, isn't that being harsh? If I hadn't engaged in them myself I would be just as skeptical!

I'm currently reading Peopleware, by Timothy Lister and Tom Demarco. This is one of those books that is on "The List" for all software managers to read. Someday I'll post what I think belongs on "The List", but for now, I'll stick with the topic at hand. According to Mr. Lister and Mr. Demarco, the "ultimate sin" of management is wasting people's time.

Have you ever called a meeting and were either later or rescheduled it? Have you ever answered a phone call during a meeting? Can the meetings you have be considered worthless? Are you constantly interrupting your developers with questions that you think need to be answered now, thus breaking their train of thought? Are your meetings just to remind your people that you are the boss?

Are your status meetings really about status? Or are they merely ceremony? There is nothing wrong with ceremony, as Mr. Lister and Mr. Demarco point out:

Organizations have need of ceremony. It's perfectly reasonable to call a meeting with a purpose that is strictly ceremonial, particularly at project milestones, when new people come on board, or for celebrating good work by the group. Such meetings do not waste anyone's time. They fulfill real needs for appreciation. They confirm group membership - it's importance and its value. Ceremonial meetings that only celebrate the bossness of the boss, however, are a waste.

I know I have done some of these, but I am not going to admit which ones, that would be self-incriminating!

According to the authors, meetings are not the only way to waste people's time. Another way, and one that hits closer to home is what Mr. Lister and Mr. Demarco refer to as "fragmentation".

When people's time is wasted in unnecessary meetings ar by early overstaffing, they'll know it. They'll be frustrated and they'll know why. If there is enough of such waste, they'll probably let you know about it, too. So these problems, though serious, are at least not invisible. There, however, one way that people's time gets wasted that is likely to go unnoticed, and thus uncorrected. This has to do with time fragmentation...

This is referring to when a knowledge-worker's time is spread over many different tasks which may also involve different teams. Why is is this a problem? Where is the time wasted? Time is wasted because through-out the day the knowledge-worker has to switch gears, from one task to another. That task could be answering a phone, attending a meeting, working on a tasks for multiple projects.

Most often these different tasks are a source of interruption, so the real waste is in the time it takes the worker to restart their original task.

Fragmentation is particulary injurious when two of the tasks involve qualitively different kinds of work habits. Thus, the mix of a design tasks (which requires lots of immersion time, relative quiet, and quality interaction time with a small group) with a telephone support task (which requires instant interruptibility, constant availability, quick change of focus) is sure to make progress on the more think-intensive of these tasks virtually impossible.

Unfortunately, the developers on my team do not get the luxury of working on a single project, they are involved in several projects. How do I combat time fragmentation and ensure their time is not wasted?

As a manager I try to do everything in my power to minimize their interruptions. For example, our developers do not have phones at their desk, their workloads are planned out at the beginning of the week so they can focus on specific projects and I try to make myself available to assist them in anyway I can. I like what Joel Spoelsky and Jeff Atwood said in one of their recent Stack Overflow podcasts:

Sometimes as a manager, it’s your job to do the grubby, ugly stuff so the sales guys can sell and the developers can develop.

My people are the backbone of my business, and I need to do everything I can so they can work their craft. I admit it! I have sinned and I repent! God help me to not waste any more of my developer's time!