Pomodoro technique – fits perfectly inside scrum

in Issue#7 Scrum by Kristoffer Nordström — 2011/10/06 at 11:35 | 2 comments

Recently, Pomodoro Technique has become increasingly popular among software  developers in the Lean and Agile communities. Kristoffer Nordström from Softhouse, made for Lean Magazine this interview with Staffan Nöteberg – the author  behind the bestseller Pomodoro Technique Illustrated.

What is Pomodoro in short?

Pomodoro Technique is a process for individual time management. It’s based on  Lean concepts like stop-the-line, justin-time and plan-do-check-act. You can  think of it as Scrum, scaled down to one  person – including adaptive planning, iterations, retrospectives etc. It’ll also give  you strategies for estimating, handling  interruptions and focusing. And the only  tools you need are a kitchen timer, three  sheets of paper and a pencil. It’s very  simple, but still surprisingly powerful.

Who is the intended target for Pomodoro?

Anyone who works in an office will benefit from Pomodoro Technique. That is  unless you only have 100% event-driven  activities like answering the phone in a  help desk.

Is it a personal way of working or is  it applicable on a team level?

Pomodoro Technique is intended for one  person, but it’s applicable for any workgroup, e.g. two persons that are pair programming or people in a meeting. I also  want to stress that Pomodoro Technique,  by no means, impedes collaboration in  the team.

What is the biggest differences between Pomodoro and Scrum, apart  from the scope and the length of the  “Pomodoros”/Sprints?

Scrum is focused on a team’s achievements,  Pomodoro Technique is about the individual’s achievements. Actually, Pomodoro  Technique fits perfectly inside Scrum. You  bring some activities from the scrum board  back to your desk and then start with your  Pomodoro.

What would you see as the biggest  advantages in working with Pomodoro?

Pomodoro Technique gets you started.  Neither boring tasks, nor complex tasks  will drive you to sub activities — like   pick up another cup of coffee, throw one  more glance at a funny web page or play  another round of Tetris — anymore. It  will also make sure that you do the most  important activity all the time. It’s very  easy to get bogged down in details of one  activity, when you should look around  and figure out that another activity is in  urgent need to be done.

What contexts is there where it isn´t  suitable to adopt Pomodoro?

If you’re not allowed to plan anything, everything is event-driven and you never have  more than one possible activity to focus on  – then Pomodoro Technique is waste. But  even if part of your day have those traits, you  can still use Pomodoro Technique for the  other parts.

What are the weaknesses of Pomodoro?

One weakness is that Pomodoro Technique doesn’t handle things that you need to do on a regular basis, but that are never the most important thing right  now, e.g. cleaning your desk. However,  since Pomodoro Technique is an adaptive process, you should get rid of anything that you believe is waste. You start  by the book (Pomodoro Technique Illustrated) and then evolve the process every  day to be suitable for you particular circumstances. All offices, all projects and  all people are different and hence needs  their own process.

Is it possible to work like this for a  long time since it seems to be very  mentally exhausting for an individual to always work this intensively?

It’s true that Pomodoro Technique makes  you extremely productive and focused.  But, to have a sustainable pace is very important in Pomodoro Technique.  If you get exhausted, then you should  adapt your process. Take a 30 minute walk  every fourth break or eat more fruit and  drink less coffee for example.

Could you name a few typical metrics to evaluate after each Pomodoro?

You should measure any experiment  you make to improve your process, like  Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act. If you  find that you’re often interrupted, then  record the type and number of interruptions. You’d be surprised how many  times you stop doing what you were  supposed to do and instead check your  emails. If activities take longer time than  you think, then record how many times  you had to re-estimate. The first and  most basic metric is the number of Pomodori (25 minute iterations) you complete every day.

How does the current development  of Pomodoro look since it has been  around since the eighties?

Pomodoro Technique attained a wider  interest in the world, when Pragmatic  Bookshelf published my book Pomodoro Technique Illustrated in 2009.  Especially the translations in Chinese,  Japanese and Korean are very popular. Most major software development  and agile conferences had talks on Pomodoro. There’s also a discussion list  at Google Groups with many interesting stories and tips from the community.

Tags: agile featured productivity scrum