Programmer Productivity – Interruptions, Meetings and Working Remotely | Henrik Warne's blog
Good Interruptions
While I totally agree with Jason that programmers need long stretches of uninterrupted time in order to be productive, there are cases when interruptions should be tolerated. If someone is working on a problem (a tester, a support engineer, or another developer), and has a question I know the answer to off the top of my head, I’m fine with being interrupted. Sure, my productivity takes a hit, but we should optimize for the company’s productivity, not only my productivity. If one (or several) other people in the company would be stalled, it’s better to ask me and get the answer in one minute, than to dig around for an answer in the code or in the documentation.
Another case where interruptions are acceptable is when there is a trouble report. In my team at work, we have virtually no trouble report back-log. We try to finish off trouble reports as soon as we get them. Getting back to the customer right away has several benefits: the problem is fresh in their minds, it’s easy to get additional information if needed, and the customer sees that we care about fixing the problem quickly. The quick turn-around time means that no back-log of unanswered trouble reports builds up. It is also easy to stay on top of what the outstanding problems are at all times, since there are so few of them.
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