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Lydia was a kick-butt personal secretary - one of the last of a dying breed. Dr. Sullivan, her boss, was a world-famous plastic

surgeon, who juggled a busy patient load, training residents and research with his three small children. One day, she posted a sign

on her desk: Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

Why did Lydia post such a sign? Because this busy doctor was driving her crazy with last-minute requests that kept her from

running his office the way it needed to be run, and it was getting out of hand. He was a world-class Flow Interrupter.

What is a Flow Interrupter?

Flow Interrupters continuously interrupt the flow of work for the people around them. Everyone has truly urgent requests every

once in a while, but Flow Interrupters see everything as urgent, and the people around them have a difficult time getting anything

done. Managers have the authority to disrupt the flow of work for people whom they supervise, but you can also act this way

towards peers, and sometimes even towards your own boss, without realizing the impact that this can have.

Some people are occasional Flow Interrupters. They can leave their teams alone if things are going well, but the moment something

goes wrong, they go into micromanagement mode. They demand constant updates, emergency meetings, and extra reports - all

things that make it harder to solve the real problems.

Product development is rife with opportunities to interrupt the flow - especially if things are not going well. Ask yourself: are your

engineers and scientists more likely to solve technical issues if you are taking up all their time with status updates? Are they more

likely to think their way out of the box youre all stuck in if you give them time and space to think clearly?

This is one of those management behaviors that falls into the category of: We do this because we believe the constant pressure

will make us faster, but it actually slows us down even more. Take it from a twenty year veteran in product development: if your

developers product is in crisis mode, they are already putting themselves under a tremendous amount of pressure. They dont need

anyone to make it worse. Unfortunately, some management behaviors interrupt the flow just when the engineers need it the most.

Six Management Behaviors that Interrupt the Flow

How often do you find yourself interrupting the flow by doing things like this?

Dropping by peoples desks for just a minute?

Giving people last-minute requests that didnt have to be so last minute?

Getting irritated when people let your calls go to voicemail or dont reply to email

within an hour?

Requesting impromptu status updates - or even worse - daily status meetings,

especially during a crisis?

Failing to complete your own work before the last responsible moment, sending your

downstream partners into overload and causing others to scramble to avoid being late?

Expecting your teams to keep you informed using formats - such as lengthy reports - that create no value for

your customers.

These are all things that may seem to have a small impact but add up to a lot of unproductive time for your colleagues.

Are You a Flow Interrupter?Six Management Behaviors that Slow Down Product Development

2013 Whittier Consulting Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Key Takeaways

Flow interruptions cost time and money in product development

Six common management behaviors interrupt the flow of work.

Learn how to work with the flow instead of interrupt it - especially if you have a product

development program in crisis mode.

are your

engineers and scientists more likely to solve technical issues if you are taking up all their time with status updates Are they more

likely to think their way out of the box youre all stuck in if you give them time and space to think clearly

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Flow Interruptions Cost Time and Money

When engineers or software developers get interrupted, it can take as long as fifteen minutes

for them to get back to where they were before the interruption. If you are interrupting people

eight times a day, youve just lost two whole hours of team productivity! Over a week, thats

more than a day - more than 20% of one highly-paid professionals time during the week.

Some types of lab work require even bigger blocks of uninterrupted time for the engineersor scientists to make any headway. If your engineers and scientists spend so much time in

meetings or writing status updates that they never get that time, you are not allowing them to

do the work that you hired them to do, and your product development performance will suffer.

What if you redirected all that time and energy to improving the flow rather than interrupting

it? How much further ahead would you be?

What can you do instead to improve the flow of work?

Heres what you can do instead:

Make sure that your staff meetings are productive and scheduled to avoid most team members most productive times.When

I was a software developer, I disliked Monday morning meetings because that was my most productive time all week!

Ask each of your team members to tell you when its best for you to drop by, and when they should be left alone. Some

people will prefer that you bring them requests first thing in the morning, and others will ask you to protect this time because its

their most productive. Some will want you to hold things until the end of the day. Every person has different energy cycles, and

if you can work with those, then you will minimize the impact of your disruptions.

Give effective support to people who are working in crisis mode.That does not mean a daily meeting with you, unless you have

some constructive way to help! If they just give status updates to you, then you are wasting their precious time!

Schedule status updates on a regular basis, and make them as easy as possible for the team to prepare. You should not be the

customer they have to impress with PowerPoint pyrotechnics! That just takes time away from the project itself.

Understand the Last Responsible Moment for your own work, especially decisions. If time-to-market is important to you, then

you must do whatever you can to make sure that you never get on the Critical Path for your team. When the Last Responsible

Moment arrives for a decision that you own, you must be prepared to make the call. When the Last Responsible Moment passesfor others decisions, youve lost your chance to second-guess them without creating turmoil.

Ask yourself, Do I do these things because I dont trust my people to do the right thing or work hard enough? If not, what

does that say about me as a manager? If you are constantly interrupting, others may interpret that as a lack of trust in their ability

to properly prioritize.

But its not about trust - its about keeping in touch with my team members!

Every manager needs to feel like hes an important part of the team, and especially when theres a problem, we want to be seen as

someone whos taking action.

Thats not a bad impulse. Its a good one - it means that you care.

But there are healthier ways to express it that will lead to better results down the road, and you will get better performance fromyour people if you show them that you respect their time and the natural flow of their work. If you learn about the natural flow of

work with your teams and learn how to work with it, you will sustain the flow rather than interrupt it.

Learn how to work with the flow instead of interrupt it

The way to stop interrupting the flow is to understand and work with your teams natural rhythms, keep status reports as quick and

easy as possible, and ensure that you do whatever you need to do to stay out of the way.

After Lydia posted her sign, Dr. Sullivan took her out for coffee to learn more about why she felt the need for the sign. Dr. Sullivan

realized that he was frittering away Lydias most productive time with all of these last minute requests, and that was costing him real

money since the office wasnt running efficiently. They began meeting once a day right after her lunch to coordinate their work.

Dr. Sullivan is still a world-class plastic surgeon, and now he is a world-class Flow Sustainer.

www.whittierconsulting.com

When engineers or software developers get interrupted, it can take as long as fifteen minutes

for them to get back to where they were before the interruption.

If your engineers and scientists spend so much time in

meetings or writing status updates that they never get that time, you are not allowing them to

do the work that you hired them to do,