Changing a programmer’s context wastes more time than you think.

Dmitri Zimine at Agile Advice writes about How Two Hours Can Waste Two Weeks. This seems to be a common trap for managers who don’t come from the trenches of development themselves. It’s very hard to explain how much time is actually eaten up by stopping what you’re doing, switching projects (even for a seemingly small item) and then switching back.

Wtih a team of two developers and many, many projects to manage, my cohort and I try to keep to a one-head-up, one-head-down approach. One person handles as many of the small requests as possible while the other is focused on a large project. Then we switch.