Multitasking in Agile

## Introduction

Multitasking is one practice that most people have adopted while performing different duties. It has however been argued by different scholars that multitasking is not good especially where efficiency is needed. In agile, it is required that during the building of a software, one needs to deal with one project to its completion before is allowed to start dealing in another (Stettina and Smit, p.80). This, therefore, implies that in agile, there is minimized requirement of multitasking. In agile software development, therefore, there are a different set of values and principles that are usually described. They are these set rules and principles that solutions are required to evolve.

## Multitasking

There are thus various negative implications that are most likely to arise in the event that multitasking is used Agile. In the event that multitasking is used, the effectiveness of the software being developed is greatly reduced. Multitasking has been associated with the destruction of productivity. This is based on the argument that where one uses multitasking, it is highly possible that the person will have divided attention and this might eventually result in the poor outcome. Software development usually required maximum attention and anything that affects the level of attention will eventually affect the resultant results of the software developed. This, therefore, explains why in the event that multitasking is used in Agile, there will be poor outcomes. The principles in Agile requires that one needs to concentrate on one project instead of trying to concentrate on delivery of all given projects at ago. This is simple terms implies that multitasking is not necessary for this process and in case one chose to use it, he or she will be going against the principles and requirements of Agile.

There are however different ways to which one can use to overcome the problem of multitasking in the process of software development in agile. It should be noted that most of those individuals who end up doing multitasking are those people who in one way or another failed to arrange for the performance of their work (Song, p.82). The first step in curing this problem, therefore, is to ensure that one identifies the business value of each given work on the queue. This is important since it helps in making the person to prioritize on which task needs must urgency in relation to its business value. After the identification of value of each business in the queue, one needs to prioritize work on the queue. Prioritizing stage is usually very relevant since it helps in dealing with the work and duties in line with the stipulated priority. The person should therefore only put attention on the person with the highest priority.

## Conclusion

It can, therefore, be authoritatively argued that the use of multitasking in Agile is irrelevant and will eventually result in poor outcome. In other words, can be said to be a form of wasted motion and it is the antithesis of Agile. Any problem that might arise in the process of software development in Agile is in most cases as a result of workers trying to use multitasking in the process of developing software. It is normally difficult to develop different software at the same time and whoever attempts stands a great chance to suffer the highest level of failure. The most valuable thing in Agile is the completion of one task and this, therefore, disqualifies the need to use multitasking.

## Work cited

Song, Ki-Sang, et al. "Analysis of youngsters’ media multitasking behaviors and effect on learning." *Analysis* 8.4 (2013): 81-104.

Stettina, Christoph J., and Mark NW Smit. "Team portfolio scrum: an action research on multitasking in multi-project scrum teams." *International Conference on Agile Software Development*. Springer, Cham, 2016.