How IT Increases Productivity

Several readers wrote to tell us about a groundbreaking study reported in Computerworld. Researchers at Boston University and MIT analyzed how IT makes people more productive at an individual level. They gathered more than 125,000 email messages, 5 years of project data, and survey responses to see what factors predicted revenue generation and completed projects. Abstracts for the original articles are available. Among the surprises: IT didn't necessarily make projects faster but it did dramatically increase productivity by facilitating multitasking; and IT-supported social networks predicted productivity better than experience did.

Funny article to post on slashdot...

[by Anonymous Coward]

... given that browsing slashdot is most likely a sign of lacking productivity.

Re:Funny article to post on slashdot...

[Rasta_the_far_Ian (872140)]

Actually, having the free time to browse Slashdot is the result of being so productive! :)

Re:

[nine-times (778537)]

How IT Increases Productivity:

• Blocks Slashdot
• Uninstalls solitaire
• Takes away admin privileges

New Generation of Multitaskers

[garcia (6573)]

But we found that heavier IT users are much heavier multitaskers, so over time, they're completing more projects and bringing in more money for the firm.

This was a common question given during interviews I took part in during my endless job hunts (I was employed but there's always something better out there). Anyway, every time it was asked I simply replied, "I would expect that nearly everyone in my generation is able to multitask effectively as we've grown up our entire lives with it."

Now, while I'm a little bit outside the "Social Networking Generation", I grew up using computers, watching TV, talking with friends and successfully completing written tasks. This, while completely foreign and thus inappropriate according to my parents, has carried into my work life and made me a very effective worker.

It may be worthwhile studying now only because some of the older individuals in the workforce didn't grow up completely immersed in the same multitasking oriented environment those that are 30 and under have.

In the future it won't be a question, it will be an expectation -- along with more work.

New Generation of Articles.

[by Anonymous Coward]

"In the future it won't be a question, it will be an expectation -- along with more work."

Like a candle lit on both ends.

Health Problems Related to the Geek Lifestyle [slashdot.org]

What Do You Do at Work? [slashdot.org]

Games As A Multitasking Aid? [slashdot.org]

Multitasking Harmful To Productivity [slashdot.org]

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

good.. take your expectations and go burn yourself out trying to meet them. when you're 35, you'll find you'll have half the energy you had in your 20s and this crapola you wrote won't hold true anymore. Kids have ALWAYS been good at 'multitasking' while adults are (generally) better at pursuing singular tasks to much greater depth.

I hope I never run into a boss that thinks this way exclusively. it's bad enough that employers expect more and more out of employees' days while paying less.

Re:

[Profane MuthaFucka (574406)]

And you sound like all those KIDS around who are YOUNG and ANNOYING. Don't you have something to spraypaint? Why are you hanging around here bothering us? Go fetch me some coffee, ya little pup. Multitask some cream and sugar in there too.

Re:

[Broken scope (973885)]

Multi task? Hell I can barely concentrate on one thing before my attention span shifts. Being old must be hell.

Re:New Generation of Multitaskers

[Ucklak (755284)]

Some of us that are 40 and under (and I imagine 45 and under) grew up building this tech and are very effective multitaskers to level of competence that this 25 and under (Generation nexters) aren't able to comprehend.

I can rewire a home for phone service. I imagine that most ./ers can too. I understood how the telephone worked at around 10 years old and was hacking calls with just a speaker and 2 wires ripped from a taple player to call my friends when I had no phone in my room, only a jack. There was a time when I memorized all the Bell codes (in my area) for redial, dictate phone number, delay dial, etc... all before this caller ID crap.

My nephew is 17. I had him accompany me to rewire my mother's condo for 2 lines of phone service. The telco only wired one jack and put a splitter on it.
I was rather shocked when he stood in amazement watching me remove the plate from the wall and rewire the wires. Up to that point, the phone is simplay just a magic box that communicates to another magic box (phone) to him.
Something so simple that you can pulse dial with a speaker and 2 wires and get a connection for simple communication was such a mystery to him that I had to rethink what todays youth is into. He can turn on a cell phone, IM, use all the features but if you ask him how many volts his cell phone battery supplies, he's quite lost.

These Generation Nexters will be able to multitask with the tech presented to them but how many will know how to fix the tech?

Re:New Generation of Multitaskers

[Andrew Kismet (955764)]

Here here. As one of these "Generation Nexters" at 18, I'm completely competent in the use of computers and tech in general. When people need help with computers in my hall, they come to me. However, beyond the basics of "Ethernet cable goes into this port here, that connects to that, etc." and doing some slightly more detailed software stuff (being a compsci undergrad), I'm at a total loss. My current opinion is "If I want to rewire a phone, I'll look it up online." There's so much free information out there that's easily accessible, I think I'd rather be a flexible multitasker who, most importantly, learns fast and can follow even meagre instructions sensibly.

It's a different way of thinking. If you want to know the voltage of my cellphone battery, I'll take off the cover, flip it out and tell you. If it's not printed on the battery, I'll look it up. If that's no use, I'm sure I've got a voltmeter somewhere around here...

Re:

[kent_eh (543303)]

My current opinion is "If I want to rewire a phone, I'll look it up online."

Not trying to bust your chops, but what if the question is "how do I rewire this Ethernet jack"?
If you need said Ethernet connection to get online and look up the instructions...

I'm in a similar position as the GP (although maybe a few hairs greyer). When I was a kid, my dad helped the local TV repair guy clean up his shop, and he brought home a few "not worth the effort to repair" TVs for me to tinker with. After a few months, I

You can't know everything.

[jotaeleemeese (303437)]

The position of having to know everything from ethernet wiring to set up websites using LAMP and anything in between is completely ludicrous.

If I don't know how to wire something I will look it up online, even if it is an ehternet connection, it is not like it is hte only one in the universe.

Re:

[sabinm (447146)]

You're right and you're wrong.

Your knowledge is essential for different reasons that you think. Think of the past and the next several generations of IT workers as a solid framework upon which we will build our future.

What do I mean by this?

The problem is that computing is not pervasive and ubiquitous enough to become an afterthought, although the world is coming around to wondering why in the world do we have hordes of men and women serving as flesh and blood scripts, functions, and system calls. If you re

Re:New Generation of Multitaskers

[dr_d_19 (206418)]

These Generation Nexters will be able to multitask with the tech presented to them but how many will know how to fix the tech?.

I was born in 1982.

My grandfather knew how build a house (he built his own, my family's summer house, etc). I don't. Will that be a problem for me? No.

Society is moving forward the same way software development is. Thirty years ago I would probably need a decent understanding of the way a microprocessor works internally in order to complete the most mundane computing task. Today I've got languages and frameworks which abstracts the basic (boring?) stuff so I can focus on business logic.

In society today, constructing a house involves so much (building laws, energy saving, technology) that would make difficult and unneccessary (if not impossible) for me to learn just to have a house built.

Leave it to the experts.

Re:

[mgblst (80109)]

Look mate, even when you were young, even thought it may be difficult to remember, most people were not interested in rewiring the telephone. So you comparing yourself to your nephew, does not really make an interesting statistic. How you can draw any information about the current generation from that is beyond me. Maybe you are too old to remember any statistics you studied at school.

Let me reassure, there are still tinkers in this generation, as they has been in the last 2 or 3.

Re:New Generation of Multitaskers

[pnuema (523776)]

It may be worthwhile studying now only because some of the older individuals in the workforce didn't grow up completely immersed in the same multitasking oriented environment those that are 30 and under have.

I have to echo one of my fellow responders...you don't multi-task better because you grew up around computers, you multi-task better because you are young. I graduated high school in 91, and so my early computer/tv/phone/gf sessions were occurring right at that magic age around 25, when we tend to loose that elasticity of brain that allows us to hold more complex logic structures in our heads - a task which happens to require lots of task switching. It is a very strange sensation to feel yourself...get dumber.

I don't see myself as less capable now than I was then, larger because experience more than makes up for the lost skill. However, I'm not nearly as capable of switching between disparate tasks as I was back then. Perhaps it is not worth studying yet - the first internet generation is in their 20's. In ten years, we may know a whole lot more.

Disagree....

[StressGuy (472374)]

were occurring right at that magic age around 25, when we tend to loose that elasticity of brain that allows us to hold more complex logic structures in our heads

No, the brain remains compliant as long as you keep it challenged. Case in point, Chess "Super" GrandMaster Anatoly Karpov recently returned from retirement to participate in a major tournament and actually went un-defeated...besting other "Super" Grandmaster's including Kasparov....Based on that tournament, his estimated ELO would have been over

Whoa there, buddy

[melted (227442)]

You do know you can't really multitask, right? Any multitasking requires context switching. Any additional task makes you 20% slower and dumber than you'd be if you concentrated at just one task. So I'd rather live in a future that took this into account and at least tried to serialize tasks for individuals somewhat. That's where the next productivity boost will come from.

What, exactly, is productivty?

[by Anonymous Coward]

The article doesn't mention what productivity is, or how the study meaured it. Without this, it's difficult to put their findings into context. Is productivity simply getting assigned tasks done? Does it take into account the quality of the output? Does it consider whether people were able to make great leaps in productivity through innovation?

It's the people, stupid

[mnmlst (599134)]

My boss and I are a severe contrast as far as the "social networks" part of this article goes. We are both SysAdmins, but he avoids everyone outside IT while I intentionally network all over the place. Naturally, I think my way is better and now there is a study that confirms it!

Seriously, every job I have had has had appallingly poor communications. As a result, I always end up figuring out how to get plugged into the grapevine. If I didn't, I would always be a day late and a dollar short. His logic in avoiding people is that he doesn't like getting called directly when something is broken, as he believes most of the "crises" are minor. I agree with him that we want people to use proper channels (Level 1 support then Level 2 and so on), but very few of them violate protocol more than once in a great while. Frankly, I have found that if they are violating protocol, it's urgent enough that I am glad they are calling me directly. If they fell through the cracks due to an improperly submitted support ticket, things would get really ugly. Guess what, when things are already ugly out there, tickets tend to get submitted improperly.

"When I'm the Boss"(TM) I want to deliberately set up "irregular" communication channels so the imporatnt things are addressed. How about an anonymous suggestion box? What about using an anonymous brainstorming session like I saw at the Thunderbird School of Business back in 1993? Heck, why not have all hands meetings once or twice each year, more frequently at the department level?

Speaking of communication, it is a drag on productivity to the extent that you have to formally track so much of what you are doing. It is a necessary evil, to some extent. At the same time, when I'm trying to figure out if a server is a chronic pain, it helps if there is a trail of tickets to be found naming said dog.

Back to being something of a Social Butterfly at work. Last week, I got invited to an informal luncheon that included the Big Dogs of the corporation. That face time probably didn't hurt me none.

Re:It's the people, stupid

[ResidntGeek (772730)]

You remind me of almost every villain the BOFH has ever conquered.

Re:It's the people, stupid

[greg_barton (5551)]

Back to being something of a Social Butterfly at work. Last week, I got invited to an informal luncheon that included the Big Dogs of the corporation. That face time probably didn't hurt me none.

Excellent! Maybe you can get transferred away and your boss can actually get some work done.

Is it just me?

[Dunbal (464142)]

Among the surprises: IT didn't necessarily make projects faster but it did dramatically increase productivity by facilitating multitasking

      So people were able to do more, and yet the projects don't necessarily get completed faster. And this is supposedly an increase in productivity? I don't care if you look busier. I want the job DONE.

Marginal study at best

[bit01 (644603)]

Look at who they're studying:

We looked at white-collar workers -- executive recruiters.

Not office workers in general - executive recruiters are in no way shape or form representative of general office workers. Not groundbreaking and quantity does not equal quality if the basis of the study is limited.

Look at who the sponsors were:

The National Science Foundation, Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel Corp. sponsored their work.

Cisco and Intel have a vested interest in encouraging IT use. The NSF will fund anything that follows their science guidelines.

Look at where it was presented:

at the International Conference on Information Systems, the largest academic IT conference in the world.

That sounds impressive to a non-academic. Until you realize that a large conference means lowest common denominator standards. Academic conferences in general are much easier to publish in than academic journals.

Look at the results:

IT didn't necessarily make projects faster but it did dramatically increase productivity by facilitating multitasking; and IT-supported social networks predicted productivity better than experience did.

Lovely piece of spin there. IT use was orthogonal to productivity. Phones were regarded as "IT". Face-to-face meetings were implicitly regarded as "IT".

They found that executive recruiters, who have the job of recruiting people, had a higher success rate when they communicated with more people.

Well, duh.

This study is a great example of the sponsors getting the result they payed for: some astroturf to encourage the use of IT technology.

Based on the ComputerWorld article the study itself seems reasonable but is narrowly focused and justifies almost none of the comments being made here about IT increasing the productivity of the average office worker.

---

Monopolies = Industrial feudalism

Sounds backwards to me

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

This isn't a measure of how IT increases productivity, it's a measure of how productive people operate. If someone is a productive person, they will get in touch with whomever is necessary to get the information or services they need. Non-productive people don't talk to others because they aren't trying to get anything done. I don't think the person's "connectedness" is provided by IT, in fact I'd argue that productive people will seek out any channel to get what they need to get done, IT or otherwise. IT may make productive people a bit more efficient, but it won't take a person who's afraid to contact others and empower them to do so.