Does multitasking really increase productivity?
Multitasking doesn't always allow for more work to be completed. Early in my career, I observed two types of multitasking. One effectively improved productivity and the other did not improve it.
Effectively Improving Productivity through Multitasking:
(1) When performing interrelated actions at work, say for a project, one sometimes encounters waiting-events. A waiting-event is an event in which a necessary work-artifact is immediately required before anymore work can be completed. The amount of delay can be either fixed or varied. An example might be waiting for a measurement to conclude (fixed) vs. waiting on someone to review a document.
(2) Some projects are due far out in the future, due to say a customer requested date, yet the work to conclude the project can be completed within a fraction of the time available. When one is faced with another project that is due sooner, but for which work can also be completed within a fraction of the available time, multitasking between the two projects can allow both projects to be completed on time. One is required to manage the critical path of each project to ensure that prerequisites are completed on time, otherwise multitasking can lead to late deliveries.
Multitasking that Doesn't Improve Productivity:
Multitasking when two or more projects have due dates in proximity, and, in which the time required to conclude work for each project exceeds the available time, will actually cause each project to be late; if all resources are working efficiently and at maximum utilization for each project.
In order to prevent late delivery, more resources are required, longer work hours are necessary, or the scope of work may need to be changed to prioritize the most important requirements. If stress is not high, team creativity and energy can be leveraged to innovate work methods to increase efficiency.
It is during early project planning that delivery risks need to be identified and team creativity utilized to creatively mitigate delivery risks. Otherwise, project managers risk the variation in human response to stress. Only some resources can step up under stress to perform well and employ creativity.
The reason that multitasking, under the above circumstances actually increases the delay for each project that is affected, is that the delay increases as time is expended in non-value added activity related to switching tasks. Examples of non-value activity related to switching tasks include taking more notes on each project to not forget new development points, walking away from one project's work area to other project's work areas, etc.
