Goal
More focus on value-creating activities and reducing task switching.
As a team, you select the customer wishes to work on for the upcoming period. “This must be doable,” you think. Reality often turns out to be more unruly. All kinds of urgent matters come in between, and you seem to spend more time switching between tasks than finishing work. How can you create more focus. This is what the focus exercise and the sprint goal are all about.
- Better separation between main and side issues
- More focus on team results
- Stronger feeling of connectedness
- Less responding to disruptions
Videos
The Myth of Multitasking (5 minutes, EN)
Dave Crenshaw presents an alternative exercise around multitasking.
A Plea for Mono-Tasking (2.5 minutes, EN)
Paolo Cardini champions mono-tasking.
To Work
Preparation
- Assign a timekeeper to measure the time per experiment.
- Each participant draws six horizontal lines on a piece of paper. On the first line they write “CONTEXT-SWITCHING DRAINS YOU!”. On the second line they write numbers from 1 to 24 (see the example).
Experiment 1
- The timekeeper gives the go-ahead and starts the timer.
- Each participant copies lines one and two from left to right. They raise their hand as soon as they’re done.
- Write down the quickest and slowest time for everyone to see;
Experiment 2
- The timekeeper gives the go-ahead and starts the timer.
- Each participant copies lines one and two, one letter and number at a time. They raise their hand as soon as they’re done.
- Write down the quickest and slowest time for everyone to see.
Evaluate the experiments with the following questions:
- How often a day are you unable to finish a task because of disruptions?
- What could we do to reduce the number of disruptions or their disruptive influence?
- How do we decide whether a disruption needs to be addressed now or can be postponed?
- Where do we ourselves cause task-switching in our work?
- What can we do to reduce the amount of work we do in parallel?
Collaboratively choose one or two improvements to try out in the upcoming period.
Source
You find a more elaborate description of how to increase team-focus in section 8.1 Focus Exercise of our book Connective Teamwork (EN, NL). The book helps you set your team in motion with a practical 5-step plan and 20 teamwork techniques. In this section you also learn about setting goals as a measure to increase focus.
You can learn more about and practice these kinds of simulations in our Connective Team Coach Training Course.
More resources
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