This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Kevin Rutherford. Original Post: emails can be muda too Feed Title: silk and spinach Feed URL: http://silkandspinach.net/blog/index.xml Feed Description: kevin rutherford on agile software development and life in macclesfield Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Kevin Rutherford Latest Posts From silk and spinach

The New York Times recently ran an interview with Ed Reilly (American Management Association) on the distractions that can result from technology. Email, for example:

"Companies go to great lengths to set up lists of authorized approvals, meaning who can approve what size of purchase. But you will find that people who are not authorized to spend $100 on their own are authorized to send e-mails to people and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of company time."

For me, this is not just about the distraction caused by receiving email (although re-acquiring the flow state does definitely cost). In Ed's comment I see the muda of working on the wrong stuff - of spending time on conversations, research, or even whole projects, that aren't on the value stream.

This isn't about finding the right balance between creative freedom and strict customer pull. It's about making sure that everyone can always identify the business value of the things they spend their time on. Is this project right for our strategy and markets? Is this feature ever going to be used? I've spent time in three very large (>20,000 people) organisations at various times in my career, totalling sixteen years in various roles in software development. And only twice did I work on projects that were actually delivered into the hands of users. The remainder all seemed to be great ideas to someone, I'm sure. But the waste incurred was huge. This is the muda of working on the wrong stuff, and very often it begins with an email...