The Multitasking Game - Prove Yourself!

Can you multitask? Of course you can. Everyone can manage a few things, but can you REALLY multitask?

Most successful people claim they're good at multitasking. If fact, many people would point to skilled multitasking as the key to their very success! I mean, I can watch TV and type blog posts simultaneously, but perhaps that's why it takes me a month to write something here. Hmmm. . .

Society today demands that we juggle multiple distractions. With smart phones we can keep up on our emails, while we're in meetings. And good thing we won't miss any emails while we're at our computers, because the email notification keeps pinging in the background! We're often judged (and rewarded!) at how well we can juggle multiple projects and still get things done.

But if the multitasking Name Game, didn't convince you that juggling makes you less efficient, then why don't you take some time and perform a simple little test. The folks at Open-Site.org have come up with this cool, competitive infographic.

It's time to prove your worth in this multitasking game!

Just click on the box below to start the test. Then brag about your skills in the comments below! Don't worry, there's a practice session . . 

Created by http://Open-Site.org

The results are in. After fumbling around a bit it turns out that I am. . .

Average!

Yes. I am totally average at multitasking. In fact, I'm below average for males. Here's my results for task management:

I have to admit, I'm not the best at hitting four keys at a time. I thought I could pull it off by pressing all of the keys simultaneously, but apparently it doesn't take much to miss your stride. A few milliseconds later, and it was all over.

I tried it a few more times and improved my score, but that ruins the fun. No practice runs, means no biased data!

Have at it and let me know your score in the comments!

A Lean Lunch!

I was out eating lunch with a bunch of coworkers and somebody mentioned how lean our meal was. He wasn't talking about the amount of fat in the meal, but the way it was prepared.

I have the pleasure of living in a diverse city, and one of the benefits is that I can enjoy foods from many cultures. On this day we were sitting down to Vietnamese “pho”, or noodle soup. 

Now if you have never eaten a bowl of pho, you are truly missing out on an amazing food experience. Perhaps a life experience! Entire chef’s careers are built on cooking the best tasting pho.

Pho is a simple soup consisting of broth, noodles, meat and some herbs. There’s something about that broth that makes pho taste like no other ordinary soup. It is divine.

So how does a delicious bowl of soup relate to “lean”?

Lean or the Toyota Production System, is the manufacturing equivalent of serving fresh food to our customer. No surprise that the Japanese were inspired by North American supermarkets. We practice lean when we reduce inventory and eliminate waste.

The staple menu item in any pho restaurant is the rare beef soup. As each customer orders their soup, noodles are added to the broth and thinly sliced strips of raw beef are thrown on top. When the soup gets to the table, the beef is still rare and cooking at your table.

Talk about eliminating steps from the process! There’s no pre-cooking of the beef. You don’t have to wait while someone fires a steak in the back. While Vietnamese cooks may not understand what lean is, they do understand value to the customer. Their customer wants nice tender beef, and they want it fast!

During kaizen events, I often use the summer barbecue as an example of a batch process. We throw hamburgers on the barbecue until the grille is full. We’re only limited by the size of our barbecue! Well, the Vietnamese pho chefs have figured out how to have a hot meal ready in only a few seconds with minimal prep work. No inventory, no batching, no waiting and no overproduction!

Lean isn't rocket science. It’s common sense. If you’re a lean geek like me, you’ll see signs of lean everywhere you go! People use lean techniques to reduce inventory and satisfy their customers in every industry. They may not call it lean, but the name doesn't matter, only the resultant value to the customer.

The Pitch Game - Lean Sales Training.

The Pitch Game is an engaging icebreaker game, designed to get people thinking creatively. Fans of the television show Shark Tank or Dragon's Den, will be right at home playing The Pitch Game.

The rules are simple. Each person is put on the hot seat and given two words. Preferably these are shouted out by an unruly audience. Combine these words together and add dot com. Now in about sixty seconds, create a business plan for your new website and pitch it to some sharky venture capitalists.

The Pitch Game isn't a lean game. Sorry. There's no push vs pull, batch vs single piece flow, kaizen or 5S. But there are some lessons to take home.

Watch the following video of the Pitch Game being run at Startup Weekend Delhi.






1. Learn to sell.

In life we all have to sell our ideas. Whether convincing employees of the merits of single piece flow, or selling management on a kanban inventory replenishment system. We are salespeople. All day long.

Sometimes we can sell by doing. Performing a small trial, a kaizen event, a pilot area, can get buy-in on a bigger project. But many times we just have our own powers of persuasion, and a short time. The Pitch Game will prepare you for that moment.

2. Present the problem first. 

This was touched on in the video. A good pitch will focus on the problem first, then the solution. How can this help us as lean thinkers? Sometimes we focus too much on the tool. Can we fit single piece flow here? Or is heijunka the answer to all our problems. 

It's worth stepping back sometimes to analyse what the problem really is. Instead of trying to shoehorn a solution into every situation, creating a comprehensive A3 will bring us back to the root of the problem and ground us.

Is the Pitch Game a useful game for lean training? 

If you have some creative types in your group, why not pitch them with the Pitch Game? Not everyone wants to be put on the spot, so be careful with your audience. At the very least you have a fun ice breaker and an interesting problem solving activity to get your juices flowing!

Looking for a real lean game, check out my huge list of lean games and simulations!

The Name Game aka HLDiTtWaN

How long does it take to write a name?

The Multitasking Name Game is designed to answer this burning question, and show the inefficiencies of multitasking.

Data-driven name writing!

How many times has someone boasted to you about their heroic multitasking skills? Heck, I tend to think that I'm a superb multitasker, too! In work places these days, juggling multiple projects is the norm and you're respected if you're good at it. And when I say respected, I mean, you get even more stuff dumped on your desk!

But the truth is, multitasking is less efficient. And the Name Game proves it!

In the Name Game, or the "How Long Does it Take to Write a Name" Game, one developer writes down the names of his customers. Just the first name, nothing fancy. The trick is, the writer has to satisfy all customers as soon as possible. These customers need the developer to write their name on a card.

Five customers, one developer (name writer).

You can only write one letter at a time!

Name Game Round One:

• Starting the timer, the customers tell the developer their names.
• The developer can only write one letter from each name at a time on a card, then move to the next name.
• Once a name has been finished, the card goes back to the customer who records how long it took. 

That's it. As you can imagine, it's not the most efficient name writing scenario. Yet, this simple name game is a microcosm for how we run our offices, how we design stuff and how we carry out business. The developer is working on multiple names at once, so every customer is getting a piece of his time, but they all suffer as their individual projects take longer.

Finish one name before moving to the next!

Name Game Round Two:

• Starting the timer, the developer begins by writing the first customer's name. 
• Once finished the first name, the developer writes the next name. 
• Each customer records the time that their name was started and the time that it was finished. 

That's more like it. We are all more comfortable writing entire words, I imagine, so the times will be improved. And this is the big revelation of the name game. Of course each customer will now get their card returned faster, instead of waiting for the writer to work on all the other cards simultaneously.

But the key is that the total cycle for writing all the names will be considerably shorter because there's no switching from task to task!

This is where multitasking fails us. We feel good working on everyone's projects simultaneously, yet no one's project gets completed quickly. By switching from task to task, we burn up a ton of time: losing focus, shuffling papers, opening files, closing files, rearranging our desks. All non-value added work which wastes our valuable time.

I'm sure we can all relate to this in our own work environment. How many programs do you have open right now on your computer?

Click here to get the Multitasking Name Game, or the "How Long Does it Take to Write a Name" Game!

So the question is, is this a lean game? Can we teach lean using the Multitasking Name Game? 

In a manufacturing environment, we are looking for single piece flow. Small batches will reduce inventory and improve flow. This potentially means switching from task to task, as we run multiple products on the same line. The Name Game tells us that switching is inefficient, so what can we do? The challenge is to reduce set up times so we can accomplish this, but we will never get to a zero second set-up time, so we will always have losses.

In software development, the Name Game shines. Since we can consider a task similar to a single product in manufacturing, single piece flow means one task at a time. And the quicker we can complete a task, the quicker we can get it ready for the next step.

What do you think? Is the Name Game only suitable for software and office environments? Does it encourage people to batch, so they don't have to switch tasks? Let's have a discussion in the comments!

Regardless of what you think, I've added this game to my huge list of Lean games!