RE: The real cost of distracting an engineer

DAB — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:31:01 GMT

Cabe,

I could not agree more. It takes dedicated time and energy to solve problems and interruptions waste a lot of time. After 30+ years in the industry, I would agree with your numbers, especially if I was deep into a problem. It takes a long time to pick up where you left off.

The phone trick works too, I would set up work time and put everything else on standby until I was ready to do something else.

At my work, we used OUTLOOK for scheduling meetings, talk about a time killer, so I would allocate my whole week setting aside work time and things I wanted or needed to do that week. When my bosses admin complained that she could not find a time to get me to his meetings I responded that she just needed to send me the invite, and "I" would decide if it was important for me to be there or not. Being an old experienced engineer gives you an excuse to bully managers some of the time. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-d57f6bad-198d-473c-96b6-24e0a412fbee/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

When I was managing engineers, I told them it was my job to find ways took help them get work done. So I would make sure that they were only interrupted when it was a really good reason, and not some trivial issue. My staff really appreciated that effort. Especially when we were involved with projects with HUGE political implications to the organization. I would attend the political meetings, sort through all of the BS and then only bring information to the group that was relevent to their needs. I made some people at the top mad, but I always had them by the leash when I reminded them about meeting the schedule and cost targets and how each change and interruption made that date unattainable and increased the cost. You have to be a very strong and willful individual to be a good engineerng manager, but I always got things done, usually on time and within budget. That reputation earned me the ability to keep management focused on their tasks and out of the engineering effort.

So take heart, all of you poor abused engineers, YOU can make a difference. Stay prepared and focused and try to be tactful and if nothing else, put up a "do not disturb" sign and try to carry on!

Thanks,

DAB

PS, the last part really worked. I met a young anthropologist on a cruise, who was assigned to give presentations to the guests. She remarked to me how she loved talking to the people, but they were always coming up and asking her questions when she was in the library trying to prepare her next talk. So I suggested the sign and she actually made one an attached it to her back. When someone would come up and try to interrupt her, she would move her head so that they could see the sign. They would usually stop, read the sign, giggle and then left her alone. She came up to me later in the cruise and thanked me for the idea. So I know it does occassionally work.[View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-d57f6bad-198d-473c-96b6-24e0a412fbee/contentimage_5F00_3.png:16:16]