Cognitive overloads: How to deal with them
Consider a hypothetical situation, your next surprise test. You are being evaluated for, how did you do, compared to your last test. Your evaluation is being done by someone, who wants to know your progress on how you are teaching your lovely 5 year old daughter. Specifically speaking, there is a clear objective behind. How are you teaching her, "how to operate Microsoft Teams for her online assessments". It is assumed that this happens to you ad hoc simply because you cant bloody remember her class time table and test schedules. It is also assumed that you can afford best in class iPad with big enough touch screen for your daughter's learning needs, accounting for size of her tiny little fingers.
I am sorry, further assumptions need to be added to the scenario. It is important to ensure, that both you and me are aligned, what cognitive overloading is all about. An article, "What is cognition?" explains very clearly about the mental processes involved. Wikipedia also a very well written article about he limited working memory we humans have, it also details out the 3 types of cognitive loads.
Photo credits - Live mint
It is further assumed that you are also managing a tiny little team, which is part of giant project team spanning continents, that is going to disrupt the market with democratized functional applications in next gen passenger cars. It is also assumed that you did not have had a formal class room learning in the next gen EE architecture and that you are aware of what are current challenges in multicore systems. It is also expected that you have some hands on experience that you know what are ephermal software components running in millions of devices, installed in millions of cars across the planet, that are "believed" to be functionally safe. It is also assumed that your team members are very open to you, for approaching you on any problem that they might have, on any topic they might encounter. Be it while reading micro-controller datasheets, autosar architecture and related topics, any information or knowledge that could span millions of pages. And that you are able to understand what they need, to enable them to win their everyday wars. This is where developing skills; to not have stress, via delegation and empathy comes into play.
According to corporate wellness magazine, stress is a silent killer of employee health and productivity. Work from home situation is quite common in IT industry these day. Almost every IT professional is actively collaborating and contributing in very large team. Trust plays a very important role in working with teams, remotely. Large multinational companies can only flourish and sustain by motivating teams for active contribution in these testing times. We can neither have task masters that dictate terms "my way or highway" nor dumb managers who just leave it to scope and "not my job" attitude.
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Photo credits: Article on Leadership and delegation from Harvard Business Review
Deligation is a very imporant skill that needs to be developed consciously. Once you are aware of the task at hand, you need to be able explain it clearly, consicely and formally. Ensure that your trust in them, is reconfirmed by them. Somewhere I read a simple rule to follow. The rule is to ask these 3 questions
Photo credits: Tylerkleeberger.com
Empathy at work is a skill to understand other people. It is a very important factor that can not only build a lasting relationship in teams, you will have lower stress and better team productivity. With conscious practice, you will be able to simply choose one thought over other. If the attempt is to opening up to other people by understanding their needs. You will be surprised by their openness, only if you are able to understand needs of those people.
I liked that topic so much, that thought of making a big chart and hang on the wall. To my surprise, i could gain further insights myself...! Kudos to Jennifer Leigh Brown writer on UX Booth!