Saturday, November 12, 2011

Silent Hour

Agile puts great value for interactions and communications but sometimes too much communication can turn to waste. Interactions should not be part of WIP and should not have their own sticky notes on board.

The Agile principles embrace
Co-Operation

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Communication

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. 

But also

Sustainable Development

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Simplicity

Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.


In order to put more emphasis and improve the latter two we now are in progress of testing the new practice we call Silent Hour. Between 12:00 to 13:00 we close doors of our team rooms to avoid all unnecessary disturbances. We urge everybody to think at least twice before distracting developers during Silent Hour. Average waiting time is 30 minutes anyway, so it should not be any problem. Also developers avoid any unnecessary chatter. Some developers are also going to test the Pomodoro Technique® since there is just enough time for two pomodoros.


This is just ongoing testing and rules will surely evolve, but it has received quite good acceptance with developers and also with other stakeholders.

Edit: There is also followup post with more information and experiences: http://ikettu.blogspot.com/2011/11/silent-hour-experiences.html

Performance = potential - interference (P=p-i). Tim Gallwey 
Posted by Unknown at 1:12 PM
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2 comments:

  1. Juho VepsäläinenNovember 12, 2011 at 3:22 PM

    Ka Wai Cheung suggests that shifts might be beneficial as well. In his example they give two hours of uninterrupted time for each member of the team at time. This means most of the team is available for discussion while a part gets to work fully focused. I think that's a nice compromise.

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  2. UnknownNovember 12, 2011 at 5:27 PM

    What Ka Wai Cheung suggests is interesting compromise indeed, but I am not sure if off-time-shifts work for us. Team has just one room and if you are discussing with one team member also others are easily distracted.

    For customer contacts we fortunately have 1st tier customer support which can handle easy tasks independently and take callback if needed. But rules are not absolute; if they really needed help they can ask advice from developers anytime. Common sense rules.

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