In early 1984, my colleague Tim Lister and I visited what was then one of America’s premier computer makers. We lectured and consulted there for a week. One of the things we noticed immediately was a culture of interruption in the software group. That meant developers could rarely work for more than a few minutes at a time on any one task. To call their attention to this, we suggested they begin to measure the length of work periods, uninterrupted chunks of time in which the developer could work obsessively on one thing and one thing only. This would involve some bookkeeping about each interruption, but it would have the positive effect of focusing attention on the value of extended chunks, and the frustration caused by the interruptions. The company agreed.

Years later, I called a contact in the company on another matter and was astounded to learn that they were still tracking interrupts. The rate had stabilized within a few months and all the value of building interrupt awareness had long since been realized. But they were still writing down the time and the cause of each interrupt.

I am sorry to say that that once great company is now not nearly so great. I do hope that Tim Lister and I were not the direct cause.