Agile

Stress Management As Productivity

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’re awash in productivity advice telling us how to get things done, how to prioritize, and so on. I should know, I give some of this advice, but I’d like to pull away the curtain a bit and discuss what a good chunk of productivity tips involve.

They involve stress management.

Sure, productivity gurus and coaches won’t say that. In fact, they may not even realize it – they’re all focused on how much you get done and how to make it easier. But to get things done requires focus, reduction of distraction, and reducing mental friction – which is really a form of stress reduction. These gurus and coaches, even the good ones, may not see it.

So, I’ll put it simply: a lot of productivity tips involve preventing, reducing, or controlling stress and worry.

A lot of productivity advice will have you review and be aware of what you’re doing, from backlogs to graphs to BVBs – Big Visible Boards. Though this may sound anxiety producing, it gives you an idea of where you are and what’s going on – it reduces the anxiety of the unknown.

“Responding to change” is a big part of productivity advice, and a core part of Agile philosophy. But by saying you can respond to change, all the advice-givers and coaches help you acknowledge and cope with change. By admitting things change and you can to, a lot of anxiety is removed.

Review sessions, retrospective, backlog polishing? All those times we productivity enthusiasts tell you to look at what’s coming up, prioritize work, and ask what’s important? That’s stress-reducing as well – because you’re able to ask what’s in the future, then get back to the present. It’s a trick for helping you stay aware – so you can stop stressing.

Breaking work down to manageable chunks? Next steps to take? That’s all helping you stay aware and take manageable bits of work you can get done – so you’re productive, aware, and not overwhelmed. It’s simple time management, but it reduces fear and anxiety.

Most productivity advice has a strong element of stress reduction or is about stress reduction. I just like to admit it now that I see it.

However, this truth also conceals something else – if methods of productivity cause stress, it’s important to ask why, because that’s revealing.

Is it because you’re focusing on the method and not the results, worried about dotting every “i” and doing each task perfectly? Then you’ve learned something about YOU.

Is it because external factors are keeping you from working? Are you organized but there’s so many dependencies and problems and needs you can’t work? Then you learned something about your ENVIRONMENT.

Is it because the method isn’t working with your life and challenges? Then you learned you NEED A NEW METHOD of productivity.

Productivity tips and systems should reduce stress. That’s the point – directly or indirectly. If we admit it, we can be more productive.

Which is, if you think of it, less stressful.

Steven Savage

An Experiment In Perspective And Productivity

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

By now if you read my blog or my posts anywhere you know I’m kind of obsessed with Agile philosophy, Agile methods (Scrum with a heavy helping of Kanban), and I use them in my regular life. I’ve started experimenting with some of my practices and wanted to share my findings.

So first up, my basic way of being productive is a month-long sprint (a period of time where I decide what I’ll do and focus on that). With that focus I’m able to avoid distractions, measure success, and know what’s coming.

Secondly, I estimate the work I’m doing in hours, trying to break things down to manageable chunks of a few hours. My exception is writing, where I set aside an “hour budget.”

OK with that said, I began noticing a few problems I experienced. Tell me if these sound familiar.

First, as life has been complex, I felt overwhelmed. There was a lot on my plate for each month. I’d often try to “front-load” work.

Secondly, because a lot’s been going on, I was often having to shift around work and priorities. That was annoying because, yes, Agile says to embrace change for productivity, but I wasn’t feeling any gain, I was just changing. Was I wasting my time?

Third I got into a good rythm, but found myself over-focused on measuring hours and time. I was investing a lot of time in trying to measure time. This was also weird as I had things so well broken down I wondered why I fiddled with hours.

I have no doubt some of this sounds familiar.

So I sat down with myself, dived into the classic “Five Whys” method I’ve reccomended, and asked what happened. The answers became immediately apparent:

  • A month-long sprint had so much and was so broad it was unweildly and didn’t acknowledge how each week was different, and it was hard to change.
  • My estimates in hours were “too real.” Thinking of things as hours led me to spend too much time trying to map “real time” as opposed to getting stuff done. So I was actually less efficient because of asking “is this an hour or not.” Another reason the whole Scrum “points thing” makes sense.

So now I’m experimenting with a few changes to help me be productive and also lighten me up a bit.

First, I’m now doing classic two week sprints (Monday to Monday). This takes me out of monthly thinking, focuses on a smaller time frame so I can better evaluate what I should do, and makes it easier to adapt. This has already been a godsend in focus.

Secondly, I’ve – yes – ditched time estimates and Fibonacci points. Because I’ve gotten really good at breaking work down, I’m now just treating everything as “things to do” and breaking them down to the smallest components. For things like writing, I’m giving myself “X writing sessions” each sprint to sit down and write. Then I just check off “done.”

I’ll let you know more about my findings (and I may need to update my Personal Agile book).

However, I do want to answer an unspoken question: do I regret my earlier productivity techniques, with month-long sprints and so on? No.

What I did worked for the time. It got things done. It also let me learn so I could keep improving what I did. It may even be that worked then but I had to find a different way to do things now.

It’s OK to change how you operate and get things done. Doing things is how you learn to do them better.

Steven Savage

Better Or Blockers

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

At a recent Agile Leadership Conference I encountered the work of Ken Rubin, an Agile coach and business expert. I can pretty much say if you’re a Project Manager or Scrum Master, read his stuff.

However, out of the many things he talked about – many things – was about how people can get improvement wrong. See, sometimes trying to improve is the wrong thing.

Which of course, sounds weird for a guy who talks about improvement, but hang in there.

See he brought up an example that if you’ve got a plan but 90% if blocked, hung up, waiting for information, then you don’t want to improve. No amount of better processes or practices will make a big difference because your problem is not how you’re doing it, it’s how you’ve got things messing you up.

Think of it this way, if there’s all sorts of things screwing up your plans, why try to be better at how you do things? Instead, start tackling the things screwing you up – the blockers.

Maybe you are doing things right. Maybe all your processes and plans really are good. It’s just you have to find what’s blocking you from being your best.

So next time you’re trying to get your book, or home, or life, or job in order, take inventory of what’s hanging you up. It might be you’re fine, just a little unaware.

Steven Savage