The last 3 weeks now felt like an extended honeymoon. Janardhan was happy, his team was also happy. Everyone enjoyed the freedom of working from home – in their pajamas and still be fully engaged in the work.
Team productivity was higher than when they were together in the office. The relief from traffic jams and commute made everyone feel a lot more energetic – and those small interruptions from kids at home, during meetings, gave all participants pleasant diversions.
But, when Sashi called Jana a couple of days ago and poured her heart out – of some of the pressures she was facing at home, it set Jana thinking.
The summary of what Sashi said:
- It was fun initially, but it is getting to be too much of a pressure.
- I get engrossed in work, particularly when I am working on a problem and the solution is not obvious. Then there are these interruptions – the milkman or grocery delivery at the door, kids needing interventions to stop their disputes or some activities to keep them engaged
- Coordinating with my husband, who is also working from home on handling clashing call schedules etc
- While all of us take turns for the chores at home and that has brought us closer as a family, demands on my time seems to have increased from multiple dimensions
- I keep switching between exhaustion and guilt, that I am running to just stay at the same place
- How can I manage my time better?
What would your recommendation be?
In this case, Jana had the following suggestions:
This is not a case of simple time management alone. The associated feelings also need to be managed.
Whether you call them cause [demands on time] and effect [the stress induced by feelings of guilt and exhaustion], both need to be addressed.
The first step is to have a better handle on time and make time for yourself that is impactful.
The 3 bucket formula for managing your time, is a simple technique that can be adopted.
In addition consider practices – such as journaling mentioned in the post and other mindfulness practices.
2 Responses
Velocity of each individual iteration will be a different figure. There are many ways velocity gets impacted. Apart from planned absence (planned leave, training etc.) and holidays, there could be unplanned absences caused by illness, personal emergency etc. which impact velocity. User stories that do not get completed in an iteration get moved to next iteration. This brings down the velocity of the iteration where the story was started and bumps up the velocity of the iteration where it got completed. This being the situation, good practice is to take an average of last five or six iterations as the velocity of the team. Team stability is another factor that impacts velocity. Teams that have higher churn will see higher volatility in velocity. Other factors such as change in technology, adoption of new tools, increase in automation, will also impact velocity either positively or negatively! However, if team is stable and has reached “performing stage” steady rise in average velocity will be seen over a period of time till any of the factors mentioned above comes into play and impacts it.
Thanks Milind, fully agree with your comment.
Finally, irrespective of the increasing trend in velocity, there is improvement for sure. This cannot be missed, if observed. One of the intent of my blog is to encourage this observation, by taking a mildly provocative stand.