Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Every new thing involves a change. A period of chaos comes with every change. If the new thing is to be short-lived, the chaos may require a large percentage of time relative to the short-lived activity.

A colleague noted that the estimates for short tasks were often incorrect by large percentages. Here is a possible reason.

New things, like new tasks, involve a change. A period of chaos comes at the start of change. “Chaos” may be a strong word; “confusion” or “learning curve” may be better words. Regardless of the word we use, there is this period of time where confidence is lacking and we hesitate or spend a little more time chatting over a cup of coffee.

When you estimate the amount of time for a new task, remember the period of chaos in the estimate.

If you have a half-day task, there may be a couple hours of chaos. Your half-day task is now three quarters of a day. That is an estimation error of 50%. Yikes. If you have a two-week task, the several hours of chaos is about a 2% estimation error, which is not noticeable.

Chaos comes with every change. Examples of events that bring chaos include:

• Start a new task
• Stop a task
• Restart a task
• Bring a new person onto the team
• The boss visits the team (stop work, start and stop the visit, restart work – the boss brings a lot of chaos)
• The customer visits the team (same amount of chaos as the boss brings)

Conclusions?

Change brings chaos, and chaos costs time. Avoid changing just for the sake of changing. Understand the amount of time that the boss brings (especially if you are the boss and you want to “drop by for a little visit”).