Principle: Protect Flow

Flow

The idea of ‘flow’ needs to be considered when thinking about the working day for a designer or developer. Developers and designers often need to solve complex problems that are multifaceted and require a train of ideas or connected parts. This requires them to have thought through the problem; gone on a journey of problem-solving.

Interruptions

Suddenly interrupting that journey causes concentration to break. This means that the person needs to re-do the groundwork when they come back to the problem, and they know that when they’re interrupted. Therefore, interrupting flow can cause setbacks, frustration, and increase the amount of time to do a single task.

Optimise Teams

So as producers we need to try and optimise ‘flow’ for our teams. One way we can do this is by trying not to interrupt their day with meetings.

Paul Graham says it best:

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

Guidelines To Follow

So, try to follow these guidelines:

• Discuss with your team what part of the day is best for any regular meetings e.g. Daily Demo
• Book meetings either first thing, middle of the day, or end at the end of the day.
• ‘Bunch’ meetings if you can. It’s better for a developer to have 1 afternoon full of meetings than to have lots spread out. Fewer interruptions!

You might end up with something like this (project meetings in yellow):

Quiet Time

Another successful way to protect flow is to designate time to it. A number of studios have reported successes by installing ‘quiet time’. This is where no meetings are to be booked for designers or developers during a particular period. The amount of quiet time can be agreed upon on a studio basis.

Below is an example of quiet time set for 3 hours in the afternoon every day: