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Near of us in the Data Technology earth are decorated people.  We are certainly in the age of push engineering overload and minimizing wasteful work at personal, professional person and corporate level is a constant goal.

From the Active Manifesto, at that place are twelve principles[1] related to software commitment.  All the principles still have deep meaning 15 years after the institution of them, simply one that repeatedly resonates with me is the tenth principle: "Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential".

When I've asked people who take been in the Information technology industry for a long time, they volition often question the idea of "maximizing the amount of piece of work non washed".  Why would 1 maximize not doing something?  Well, the concept shouldn't be that catchy to sympathise.  Let me provide a common example.

For me, context switching is a daily challenge to manage.  In my task, in that location are constant interruptions in the form of calls, Instant Messages, texts, emails and the old fashioned borer on my shoulder.  I've had an old, rather bad habit of wanting to "keep my inbox" clean and checking my email throughout the solar day.  Evidently I'm not the only one since over a third of Americans follow me in this practice[2].  This is a productivity killer since I'm always switching between focused work and my emails.  This doesn't follow the Kanban-inspired "End Starting, Start Finishing" mantra.

And then more oft now, I go along my e-mail closed throughout the solar day and but go into it similar to spelunking into a cave.  Check information technology out but a few times a day.  Productivity appears to have risen since I find myself finishing more before going on to the next chore.  So this is about maximize the corporeality of piece of work not washed.  Don't check on email regularly since it'south a productivity killer.

Now let's take this Lean-Agile principle to the software development earth.  From Donald Yard. Reinertsen's book, "Menses"[iii], there is a balance between the frequency of any transition (i.e. checking your email) and the belongings cost (i.e. others waiting for yous to respond your email).  This residuum is very tricky to come across since it is dependent on the situation.  If you lot go urgent emails daily that crave instant attention (product system alerts, major support incident, etc.) and then checking your email frequency would be necessary.

See the below overall conceptual chart of how to maximize your flow.  Sometimes, maximizing flow is clear and piece of cake when at an private level.  Withal, at the organizational and team levels it becomes far more complicated.  Simply through tracking and measuring the results will you be able to decide the optimum identify of maximizing the work not done.  Notation sometimes the results volition be surprising!

So take for instance Scrum ceremonies like backlog refinement, dart planning, sprint reviews, sprint retrospectives and of course, the daily stand.  If we consider the daily standup, many squad members often find it a "waste of fourth dimension".  That may indeed exist the instance.  For instance, if the team is collocated and regularly talk together, they may already have this key points of a stand known to each other.  Using tools like Jira, TFS, CA Technologies (one time Rally), VersionOne, etc. volition likewise decrease the "churr".  In this case, reducing the number of standups may actually be the best remedy and increase the amount of work not washed.

Scrum has a set up of tools with a recommended set of cadences that should be synchronized in social club to simplify commitment and therefore maximize the work non washed.  This recommendation should be adjusted based on the needs of the organisation.  Scrum is flexible, simply still organized simply at a different levels.

A diligent leader will always exist seeking for these areas of waste and pointing those out to their staff to address their own organizational bottlenecks, reducing the amount of waste material.  For example, I've seen the Outlook agenda for a specific CTO in a large retail company where his schedule was booked pretty much 100% from usually 7am – 5pm every single twenty-four hour period.  Akin to a freeway at 100% usage, this brings his productivity down to a minimum where working early mornings and evenings becomes necessary for daily work and less on longer term vision, innovation and growth.  He should focus on maximizing that piece of work non done by blocking out fourth dimension for completing priority work and thereby freeing up the resulting traffic jam for unexpected events.

 So when you are in the centre of your busy work solar day, remember to continuously seek ways to maximize that work not done.  This is a never catastrophe procedure and will always need activity or otherwise decrease your enterprises' ability to perform.

[1] http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-often-do-people-check-their-email-2015-eight

[three] http://ardalis.com/principles-of-product-development-menstruum-book-review

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