Why Flow Time is Valuable
At 6th Sense Analytics we have 2 essential data types that represent team effort: Active Time and Flow Time. Simply consider Active Time to represent all work time and Flow Time to represent immersion or focused time.
I think every software engineer understands intuitively the periods where they are in the flow. It’s those periods when you can truly focus on your work without interruption. I'm of the habit of getting up at 5am and working. My most productive period of the day is from 5am - 7am each morning -- even though I'm arguably not a “morning person”. Why is that?
Because of how quiet that time is. I can immerse in my work without interruption. It's also my most creative time. Not so much in getting ideas, but in bringing them forth in code or in my writing. My point is that we've all experienced flow and its benefits. The trick is to track that highly productive state in detail and then expand the periods where you can immerse -- thus increasing your overall effectiveness.
There are 3 primary references in the technical team leadership literature that I want to explore in understanding Flow Time and its value -
Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister discuss immersion time and software team productivity in their classic exploration of software development leadership in Peopleware. In it they explore the importance of knowledge workers (programmers) to be able to immerse in their work. They speak in terms of increased productivity, but also creativity in creating software and solving the inherent problems in that endeavor. It is the latter that truly intrigues me, as software engineering is about solving problems -- in the most creative and effective manor possible. Flow truly enhances this ability.
Tom DeMarco has also published a recent work entitled Slack - Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency. In Slack, he makes a much more compelling case against the management myth of work time equaling efficiency and productivity. For example, which do you think is the more efficient team?
a) The team who works at a level of 30 hours of Active Time with 2 hours of Flow Time or
b) The team who works at 20 hours of Active Time with 10 hours of Flow Time
I would venture that the latter is the more creative and truly productive, even though they are physically working less hours. Slack covers other aspects of efficiency and I'll probably focus on them in a later post.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written a book Flow and another Creativity that explore the psychology of discovery, creativity and invention. While not focused solely on software development or programmers, it applies perfectly to our realm. He also touches on the attributes of enjoyment as it relates to flow:
- There are clear goals every step of the way
- There is immediate feedback to one’s actions
- There is a balance between challenges and skills
- Actions and awareness are merged
- Distractions are excluded from consciousness
- There is no worry of failure
- Self-consciousness disappears
- The sense of time becomes distorted
- The activity becomes autotelic
And you can clearly see that many of these attributes map quite nicely to software development effectiveness, while also leading to work enjoyment and satisfaction.
As a team member, group leader or manager, you want to drive your team into the flow as much as possible. When you first install 6th Sense Analytics you’ll want to encourage each engineer to analyze their Flow Time; looking for patterns of productivity and creativity across the week and trying to understand the drivers for them. You'll also want to look at flow from a team or project perspective, again, looking for the same patterns.
In both cases the goal is the same - to increase your Flow Time by changing your work patterns and behaviors to enhance your productivity, efficiency, and creativity.
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