Developers, managers and tasks. A hot topic in any software company.

There is one major topic in all over the software (and not only software) companies around the entire world.

It’s about the team members tasks, their estimation, the completion time, the pressure and the productivity.

How these 5 variables intersect each other and how the end result is going to be perfect?

According to Parkinson’s law, if there is a pressure on the developers to finish everything, they will start adding margins to their estimates, which turns into less productivity.

If you are a developer, you strongly agree with this statement. At least not loudly I guess. If you are a team lead or manager, once again you strongly agree. At loud this time.

Now let’s see the situation in more detail.

The deadline is yesterday scenario

Imagine John is very pressed to do his work. The deadline is tomorrow. The task is estimated for one day, while everyone would agree that it needs 3 days. John activates himself extremely high. His body produces a lot of cortisol and other stress hormones. His productivity is on maximum. The task is completed, but the body and the brain suffer. This leads often to burndown. It is very natural that next time when someone asks John for an estimate, he will add a big margin. A lot of team members will start doing this. There will be secret discussions and agreements between development team members.

I have so much time scenario

John has a very long time to complete his task. A month for example. He is very skilled and he believes he can handle it for no more than a week.

What does John do?

His more likely first activity is to spend some time on Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram. Chatting with some girls and friends around. Checking some latest job offerings, maybe even communicate a while with some recruiters just for the fun, having no plans to change his current employer.

A few hours later John is bored with this social networking and decides to check his task. He spends a few minutes. “WOW! I really have all the time in the world to do it!” He reads the technical specifications, checks the designs. Everything seems very nice.

It is time for an afternoon coffee. Some chatting again. Oh, it's time to go home now!

30 days later of wasted time

Almost always, the assignee starts doing the task at the very end of the deadline. The pressure is coming. Sometimes people might even overtime. John had all the time in the world to complete his task, but ironically he actually felt pressure at the end and worked at nights. Maybe even the deadline was missed.

How can we avoid Parkinson’s Law?

Tip one

Some of us may be surprised, but the old gold practice from #scrum and any #projectmanagement methodologies of breaking down big tasks into smaller tasks is a strong tool for avoiding this phenomenon.

Tip two

Estimate as much as properly you can. Envolve people, research some estimation practices. Get familiar with technologies you don't know if you need to.

Tip three

Remember the Definitions of “Done”? This really helps. Complete all the needed activities, no less and no more.

The project management knowledge has a good example for the case when someone is working too much on something. Remind about the Goldplatting. Lot of companies ignore this.

Tip four

Avoid multitasking. Yes, I know it is a very popular phrase. Every manager loves when the team is working on multiple projects at the same time. But in the end, it doesn't help anyone. It’s bad for your team. It is proven. Your project development time will not decrease. Even trainees know this.

Last tip

Spread among your team's knowledge of bad practices and good practices. Learn, experiment with yourself and with your team. Communicate approaches with other team members and high management. Try out different strategies.

Everything can be controlled. Even negative situations. Especially when you have the vision and awareness for the best.

Bonus tip

Remember the first tip? It was about breaking big tasks into smaller ones. There is another interesting result of doing this. When we complete successfully some task, our brain automatically produces hormones of satisfaction and happiness. Completing successfully tasks often is a great tool for transforming people into a dream team. This makes your team members happier and more productive. The hormones of happiness recover the body, the brain and increase cognitive abilities.

Time Estimation and management is an important topic published on the BVOP Ultimate Guide.

Get familiar with some more ways to increase your team's motivation and provide them some happiness and success and you will have to worry less about topics like tasks and productivity.

Such topics are deeply introduced in all courses of Project Management Academy (PMA.bg)

If you liked this publication, check my other articles:

Why Scrum may not help you with your projects and how to get the real benefit of it?

And even more: Anton’s activity

Thank you!

Anton Radev