How interupts kill productivity

1 collaborator

WHAT IS IT?

This model illustrates the influence of interrupts (represented in this model by e-mail to read and answer) on personal project productivity. It’s possible to simulate how the frequency to look into ones’ mailbox influences the productivity factoring a certain level of complexity in project tasks and e-mail.

HOW IT WORKS

The agent, a project member has 100 tasks to complete for a project. The model calculates the productivity of the agent considering the total time used to complete the 100 tasks. Project tasks’ complexity can be chosen, knowing that the more the task is complex, the more it will take to complete it. The complexity of the task is random in the boundaries of the variable, a task complexity of 1 means that the work is straight forward.

It’s possible to activate the reception of e-mail, and in this case, choose the frequency of e-mail read and answer that range from 1 (the agent stop working on the project for each incoming e-mail) to 100 (the agent wait to have 100 e-mail before reading and answering them). The number of incoming e-mails is random and chosen within a range from 1 (at each tick of the game, the agent can receive 0 or 1 e-mail) to 5 (at each tick, the agent can receive 0 to 5 e-mails). It’s possible to choose a complexity degree in the e-mail as it is possible for the project tasks.

HOW TO USE IT

It’s good to start the simulation without receiving any e-mail to measure productivity without interruption. Productivity is not equal to one because of the model factor in the activation time for executing a task, represented by the move of the agent towards the work to do represented by a patch. Complexity level decreases the resolution time.

When productivity has been benchmarked, start with treating e-mail in parallel and see how productivity changes according to the rules set to check the e-mail.

THINGS TO NOTICE

In the productivity curve, a plateau appears with a given frequency according to the parameters the user chooses.

THINGS TO TRY

Use the model first without e-mail, then start changing one parameter at a time to see how productivity evolves. The results obtained with multiple experiments in the Behaviour space suggest that rules could be defined.

EXTENDING THE MODEL

Additional input variables could be defined to change the number of tasks for example and see if the size of the project affects productivity.

NETLOGO FEATURES

Code is straightforward

RELATED MODELS

None

CREDITS AND REFERENCES

Produced and written by Xavier Bronlet (xavier.bronlet@supsi.ch), Professor at University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

Comments and Questions

Please start the discussion about this model! (You'll first need to log in.)

Click to Run Model

Globals [color-area x-pos y-pos area unread-email project-remaining-effort new-mail task-done productivity time]


turtles-own [ project-work  e-mail-to-read ]

patches-own [ complexity]

to Setup

  clear-all
  set-default-shape turtles "person"
  create-turtles 1
  [
    setxy 0 0
    set color gray + 2
    set size 2

  ]
  reset-ticks
  Create-Area
  Set project-remaining-effort 100
  Set time 1
  Set task-done 0
end 

to Go

  if task-done != 100 [work

  if E-mail [
  set new-mail random 2 * random (Email-frequency + 1)
  set unread-email unread-email + new-mail
  receive-mail
  ] tick
    if task-done = 100 [ Project-Completed]
  ]
End


To work
ifelse unread-email < email-limit [
   ask turtles [
   let target-patch min-one-of (patches in-radius 25 with [pcolor = green]) [distance myself]
   ifelse target-patch != nobody  [
    face target-patch
        fd 1
        set time time + 1
     if pcolor = green [
        ask target-patch [
          if Random Task-complexity + 1 = 1 [

            set pcolor black
            set task-done task-done + 1
            set productivity task-done / time
          ]
      ]]][
      stop
      ]

]
  ]
  [ask turtles [
   loop [
    if unread-email = 0 [ stop ]

   let target-patch min-one-of (patches in-radius 25 with [pcolor = red]) [distance myself]
   if target-patch != nobody  [
    face target-patch
      fd 1
        set time time + 1
    if pcolor = red [
    ask target-patch [
      if Random Email-complexity + 1 = 1 [
              set pcolor white
              set unread-email unread-email - 1]]
          set productivity task-done / time
  ]]]]]
end 


To receive-mail



  loop [
    ifelse new-mail = 0 [ stop ]
    [ask turtles [
      let target-patch min-one-of (patches in-radius 25 with [pcolor = white]) [distance myself]
   if target-patch != nobody  [
    ask target-patch [
      set pcolor red]]
      set new-mail new-mail - 1
    ]]]
end 

To Project-Completed

  ask patch 3 -8 [
  set plabel "Project completed"
  set plabel-color white]

End

to Create-Area

  set color-area green
  set x-pos ( x-pos - 12)
  Drawing-area

  set color-area white
  set x-pos ( x-pos + 15)
  Drawing-area

  ask patch -5 11 [
  set plabel "Project progress"
    set plabel-color white]

  ask patch 8 11 [
  set plabel "Mail box"
    set plabel-color white]
end 

to Drawing-area
  set area patches with [ pxcor >= x-pos and pxcor <= ( x-pos + 9 ) and
                          pycor >= y-pos and pycor <= (y-pos + 9 ) ]

  ask area [
    set pcolor color-area                                                 ;; assigns color green (without demand) - color red (with demand)  -  color white (demand does not work)
    ]

  ask patches with [ ( pcolor != green and pcolor != white ) ] [ set pcolor sky ]
end

There is only one version of this model, created almost 3 years ago by Xavier Bronlet.

Attached files

File	Type	Description	Last updated
How interupts kill productivity.png	preview	Preview for 'How interupts kill productivity'	almost 3 years ago, by Xavier Bronlet	Download

This model does not have any ancestors.

This model does not have any descendants.

NetLogo