Laser beam

I love making weird, some say intractable, analogies.  Let me throw one out; maybe it’ll resonate with you.  I don’t know, I may just be the next Yogi Berra…

Having your team members multitask is like trying to cut steel with a light bulb; you end up wasting a lot of energy with little result.

Do you see where I’m going with this?  Do you give up? 

The point I am trying to make is that multitasking wastes energy by scattering it; with 1000W of lighting you generate a lot of heat and some light, with a 1000W laser you cut through steel.  The difference?  Focus.  The same applies to teams and their members; we scatter the energy of teams in a number of ways:

• Not properly closing projects, leaving phantom tasks that need to be taken care of, which creates distractions and frustration.
• Assigning the same person, at a reduced utilization percentage, to a number of projects. This forces the person to switch and regain focus over and over again.
• Holding meetings with unclear agendas or that involve too many people.

I contend that if project were to follow Balanced Score Card (BSC) principles, greater focus would be achieved, team members would enjoy a greater sense of accomplishment, and energy (and $$$) would not be wasted.  When I first made mention of Balanced Score Cards, Glen Alleman contributed this document; you might want to steal a copy!

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Comments

[Bob]

Very enlightening!

[Patrick Richard]

Bob,

I don't know about that; lightning may fry your whole team...

Thanks for the comment!

[Glen B Alleman]

This is what I show our college kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zuDXzVYZ68

If I can only get our managing partners to understand.

[Patrick Richard]

Glen,

Thanks for the link, I had actually heard of this or similar research in a podcast. An interesting comment from the researcher was that, when asked, many multitaskers invoked peer pressure as a reason for their behavior.