

How to achieve greater productivity of teams - mcxx
http://lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-presentation.html

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gvb
The .pdf is an image. The following are the references:

Crunch in the game industry

* <http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons> (updated)

* <http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/01/crunch-mode>

Best team size

* [http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=150...](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1501)

* [http://www.teambuildingportal.com/articles/systems-approache...](http://www.teambuildingportal.com/articles/systems-approaches/teamperformance-teamsize.php)

Sleep and problem solving

* [http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/01/21/sleep.crativity.ap/inde...](http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/01/21/sleep.crativity.ap/index.html) (broken)

Sickness and Overtime correlation

* [http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15461524](http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15461524)

Prioritization

* <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First_(book)>

4 day work week

* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697784)

* <http://rop.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/2/166> (subscription required)

* From [http://www.shrm.org/Education/hreducation/Documents/Creating...](http://www.shrm.org/Education/hreducation/Documents/Creating%20a%20Flexible%20Workplace_Final.pdf) (pdf)

Team spaces

* "Rapid Software Development through Team Collocation" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Volume 28, No. 7, July 2002

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akronim
In summary, use cross functional teams of < 10, seated in closed team rooms,
working 40hrs/week, scheduled to 80% workload, and if you need to crunch,
start 4 weeks from the deadline and prepare to lose out afterwards.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Another key finding is that your subjective impression of productivity will be
wrong if you exceed 35 hours per week. You'll think you're more achieving more
even as you dip below the average productivity.

For the more Machiavellian among us, he also claims you'll be rewarded by
management more on appearance of productivity (i.e. long hourse) than on
actual results.

~~~
loup-vaillant
I have an actual horror story about a colleague's acquaintance which proves
him right:

(1) On a late project, with only 3 weeks away from delivery, a manager (the
above acquaintance) was called to save the day. He found that the team was on
crunch mode, and quite tired.

(2) First day, at 18 O'clock, he said "Everyone go home, I don't want to see
you until 9am tomorrow". He actually made it a policy.

(3) Projects miraculously ships on time and on budget (or at least, it slipped
far less than originally expected, I don't remember).

(4) The team is happy. The manager's bosses are not, on the ground that if the
team worked harder (read: longer hours), it would have performed better. As a
result, they didn't gave him any more responsibilities.

Clearly, as Dan Pink said, "there is a mismatch between what science knows,
and what business does".

