On a project not too long ago, we instituted what became effectively known as “quiet hours”. it was a dedicated block of time (i think ours was 1-4pm) that act as a no interruption time period – no email, no IM, no phone, no code reviews. The benefit of this was that the team agreed to set aside that time period each day for focused work. Also, the project lead was there to eliminate distractions coming from outside the team.

I heard a speaker at the Agile 08 conference say, “the best thing a Scrum Master can do for their team is to act as a gate keeper. anyone wanting access to team members will need to get by them.”

I think the Pomodoro technique could work an environment where the team has agreed to something similar to our “quiet hours”. There was lots of joking and complaining at first, but I can tell you that the team got more done when we had “quiet hours”.

Very neat, I wouldn’t mind trying something like this out when I know I have a solid 1+ hours dedicated to writing software, combing requirements, or whatever. If you are going to spend a long period of time on 1 task (or a couple of related tasks), it makes perfect sense to take breaks to keep your mind fresh.

You could potentially use it to batch up certain tasks, but perhaps just collecting metrics would be helpful for improving personal process, whatever you deem that process to be. Perhaps you realize that certain personal or external interruptions happen more often than others and you can find some way to reduce them by

To Keith, I agree that knowledge can form a bottleneck and that specialization is to a degree unavoidable or desirable. That being said, I could be better at managing how I explained things. As a blatant appeal to authority, Staffan gives the following examples in his book draft:

“The strategy for handling external interruptions is a four stage rocket:

1. Inform – I’m in the middle of something.
2. Negotiate – is it OK if I come back to you on Friday?
3. Schedule – I write the activity down and later on, I plan it for a future Pomodoro.
4. Call back – I do call back as I have promised, otherwise I will not be entrusted with this responsibility anymore.”

“Are we not allowed to communicate with our team mates when we practice Pomodoro Technique? Of course you are! Feedback and communication are two of the Agile cornerstones. And they should be a part of the Pomodoro Technique as well.

But what about tracking external interruptions then? Every team has to find its own culture…. To promote communication within the team, you could decide not to count team-member-to-team-member questions as external interruptions…. This agreement entails an additional responsibility. Before I start communicating with a team mate who’s obeying his ticking clock, I need to consider if I need the answer immediately. Otherwise I use an asynchronous communication channel, such as e-mail.”

There’s definitely a balance to be struck, and as you say, the “Pomodoro Zen” is unlikely to have the intended global effects. Communication has a value in being expedient, but there are diminishing returns at some point of expediency and the time that you spend on it, depending on the situation. What if you could respond an hour later to most emails and you gained half an hour per day as a result? Would it be worth it? What does your eye flicking down to the new email popup cost you in mental focus throughout the day? It would be great if others clearly state the response they desire and in what time frame. “This will be very worthwhile if I get it by the end of the week, but much less so if later than that since I have the meeting next Tuesday.” Not likely to happen, but something to consider if you are being thoughtful in your communications.

Thanks for the comments, they made me consider even more what I wrote and try to find the answers to things that originally stumped me!

It seems to me that the bulk (entirety?) of the benefit comes from having 25 minute chunks that can be interruption-free without blocking people. If you’re in a leadership position of any sort (project lead, tech lead, database-guy, etc.) this seems like a particularly bad idea because it essentially creates micro-blocks for the coworkers that need your help.

For this to work on a project in which you know things that other people need to know, you’d basically have to tell your coworkers to set up appointments to speak with you.

Maybe that’s an extreme interpretation. Maybe what you’re really after is a perceived office (with walls, and a door). Maybe with a cardboard cutout of an old guy in a suit to create the illusion of a client meeting. The whole point being that you’re trying to enforce the perception that your time is more valuable spent doing whatever it is you’re doing then helping a coworker with whatever it is they’re doing. This is an uneasy state of things if you have Knowledge that needs to be distributed to your coworkers (I promise that you do).

What I’m getting at is that if you’re on a project of size > 1, then you’re probably not going to spend more than half your day in Pomodoro zen. More than that and you’re going to need an appointment system to make sure that you’re distributing knowledge in a timely manner. Maybe that’s what Matt’s take-a-number system was all about.

In all seriousness, sounds like an interesting system. The more ‘manager’ I’ve become, the more my day has become completely event driven fire fighting. It has become difficult to buckle down for a morning or afternoon and crank out work products because of this. Maybe this system would help..