Finding Flow

September 7, 2022

How to reach optimal productivity and impact is the topic of many books & articles. Based on all this wisdom and over time I've developed the following theory.

In Technology, work is complex i.e. we often find out the full scope and complexity along the way. For this reason we prefer to dedicate blocks of time and during each of these blocks we try to make the best possible impact. This time-box is followed by a review on how well we've done and how we can do better. We often use regular calendar units like working days, weeks, quarters and years. Think about daily standups, quarterly performance reviews, regular board meetings etc. etc. , but different frameworks have introduced fancy time-boxes like sprints, cycles & pomodoros.

Choosing the right time-box and as such rhythm is essential. Having the wrong rhythm will have disastrous effects on productivity and motivation. There are different reasons for this; starting and/or finishing a time-box involves ceremonies, producing artefacts etc. which take time to complete and also the time allocated to focus simply might be too short. I see for example that for a lot of teams, 2-week sprints are too short. Obviously there can be multiple and more structural reasons for this which I'll try to ignore this for now.

Teams who's primary responsibility is to handle customer tickets have a different rhythm from teams that do a lot of research. Putting these activities in the same team makes it more complex for the team to find the right rhythm. Each team has their own optimal flow that will help them make a difference and maybe this is a good time to consider if the team's mission and composition is the right one.

The whole idea of the time-box is that you focus on a given part of the mission and that you have something to show for at the end. Switching between missions (context switching) is considered expensive, however today's reality requires us to do just that. This implies that we do need to get good at context switching, while still finding time to focus on that topic. This is where personal productivity, flow and time-boxes comes in again. I personally love the pomodoro technique, but with a slight variation. I choose to dedicate a small number of pomodoros on a given topic based on priority of the topic and push myself to have some meaningful result before the end of the last pomodoro.

Another insight I've discovered over time is that the best ideas actually don't happen while focussing, but when stepping away from the problem. Developers often claim that their best ideas happened while smoking a cigarette or going for a "bio break". I have also often seen that working on seemingly unrelated topics provides insights on how to tackle other problems that I am facing. Considering this actually might imply that shorter time-boxes and that switching between topics can be a good thing.

When you or the team is in their time-box it is essential that you deliver something meaningful by the end. I used to dislike deadlines unless the presented a 'real' deadline. A real deadline is for example the end of a contract for a solution we are using. However, there's nothing wrong in pushing ourselves and make each time-box count. It makes success that much more rewarding. If you regularly fail to deliver during the time-box, it is time to reflect and consider if your rhythm is the right one (I personally really like ShapeUp for example).

Once you get used to make an impact each time-box, you will find your flow and real progress is made. This goes for personal productivity, team velocity and ultimately personal and company success.