Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

by Jeff Sutherland

Working less helps you get more done with higher quality.

Why is it that if you work fewer hours, you get more done?

Scott says that people who work too many hours start making mistakes, which, as we’ve seen, can actually take more effort to fix than to create. Overworked employees get more distracted and begin distracting others. Soon they’re making bad decisions.

The disturbing evidence reveals that we have a very limited capability to make decisions, and the more energy-depleted we are, and the less downtime we get, the worse we are at it.

“Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions,”

The vast majority of the decisions the judges looked at were requests for parole.

These are esteemed judges using their years of experience and wisdom to make critical decisions affecting not only the lives of the prisoners and their victims but the well-being of the community as a whole. Each day they heard between fourteen and thirty-five cases.

It turns out what really mattered was how long it had been since the judge had had a sandwich.

That rate dropped to nearly zero by the time of the next break.

They displayed more imagination and capacity to see that the world, and people, could change, could be different.

But numbers, and sandwiches, don’t lie.

“ego depletion.”

What really changes is your self-control—your ability to be disciplined, thoughtful, and prescient.

Specifically, these students were presented with different products and asked to choose which they preferred.

Whatever resource is burned up by making decisions is also used up in self-regulation. The students who’d made all the product decisions simply couldn’t hold their hands in the icy water as long as the control group that had been spared the decisions.

You start making mistakes—eventually, serious ones.

Hours themselves represent a cost.

output.

Be Reasonable

There are three types of waste identified by Taiichi Ohno that lead to people working harder, and for more hours, than necessary.

Muri,

“Unreasonableness,”

“Absurdity.”

But you don’t want them striving for absurd, impossible goals.

“Unreas...

Expectat...

I see this as a fundamental flaw in the process.

A team that depends on regular heroic actions to make its deadlines is not working the way it’s supposed to work.

It’s the difference between a cowboy riding in and rescuing the girl from the bad guys and a disciplined Marine platoon clearing the kill zone.

“Overburden.”

Dilbert

It includes onerous company policies that get in the way, unnecessary reporting that has people filling out forms for the sake of filling out forms, and meaningless meetings

that suck up time and don’t deliv...

“Emotional Waste.”

Assholes often justify their behavior by claiming they’re simply trying to make people work better.

But they’re merely indulging the negative aspects of their personality, and nothing is more undermining of a team’s ability to excel.

Don’t be an asshole—and don’t allow, abet, or accept that ...

Flow

“process”

What Scrum does is focus us on trying to eliminate the pointless waste that seems part and parcel of work.

“flow.”

it is energy effortlessly flowing through you.

But as the kung fu master, the monk, the dancer, or the opera star will all tell you, at the root of flow is discipline.

Waste is anything that distracts you from that.

THE TAKEAWAY

Multitasking Makes You Stupid.

Half-Done Is Not Done.

Do It Right the First Time.

Working Too Hard Only Makes More Work.

Don’t Be Unreasonable.