Today I wanted to talk about a general thing I’ve experienced, and I’m slowly learning from. Switching gears. By that I mean jumping from one project to another. If you’ve checked out the products we’ve designed, you’ll notice that there are some very different items in the list. Some are SM, some are PP, some VC and some even MM and WM. So what? So… it means they are are all radically different from each other (and perhaps I’ve wandered too far away for some of them, in search of more sales). Inevitably, it’ll happen though. Even if you only have 2 different projects you’re working on, you might be asked to jump over to the other project… so, how can you make that as painless and efficient as possible? try this approaches..
My favorite, if you can, finish up what you’re working on. Right now, I’ve been working on a big Web Dynpro addition, but there is interest in one of our MM utilities. These 2 things have nothing in common. So I chose to finish up the piece of the Web Dynpro that I’d been working on for the past 2 weeks. Why? because when you shift gears, you forget what you were doing, you have to spend an hour or so remember where you left off, and what you still wanted to do. If you have the option, get yourself to a good stopping point before you move on. It’ll save you a lot of time (and headaches).
Multi-task when you can. I know this is a little counter-intuitive, but if you can spend even an hour a day on the first project, you’ll keep all your ideas fresh (even things as simple as where to put the breakpoint). This will keep you from forgetting where you left off. Option 1 is still better, but this will help without diverting too much attention away from your new priority.
Take good notes. (often you’ll do this one no matter what). Be sure to not everything you haven’t done yet, maybe little techniques you used that you might forget (I use this blog for that), or even just bullet points of what you were working on, and where to start when you can return to this. It sounds obvious, but I’ve forgotten to do this more than one.
I know, none of this is rocket science, but keep this ideas in mind. We all get pulled away from what we “want” to work on, in order to do what we “have” to work on. So make it as easy as you can to jump right back where you left off. Thanks for reading.
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,
Mike