TITLE: Middles
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 09, 2018  4:02 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 In
<A HREF="http://behavioralscientist.org/everything-is-timing/">
   an old blog post</A>
 promoting his book on timing, Daniel Pink writes:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 ... Connie Gersick's research has shown that group projects rarely
 progress in a steady, linear way.  Instead, at the beginning of a
 project, groups do very little.  Then at a certain moment, they
 experience a sudden burst of activity and finally get going.  When
 is that moment?  The temporal midpoint.  Give a team 34 days, they
 get started in earnest on day 17.  Give a team 11 days, they get
 really get going on day 6.  In addition, there’s other research
 showing that being behind at the midpoint--in NBA games and in
 experimental settings--can boost performance in the second half.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 So we need to recognize midpoints and try to use them as a spark
 rather than a slump.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 I wonder if this research suggests that we should favor shorter
 projects over longer ones.  If most of us start going full force
 only at the middle of our projects, perhaps we should make the
 middle of our projects come sooner.

 I'll admit that I have a fondness for short over long: short
 iterations over long iterations in software development, quarters
 over semesters in educational settings, short books (especially
 non-fiction) over long books.  Shorter cycles seem to lead to
 higher productivity, because I spend more time working and less
 time ramping up and winding down.  That seems to be true for my
 students and faculty colleagues, too.

 In the paragraph that follows the quoted passage, Pink points
 inadvertently to another feature of short projects that I
 appreciate: more frequent beginnings and endings.  He talks about
 the poignancy of endings, which adds meaning to the experience.
 On the other end of the cycle are beginnings, which create a
 sense of newness and energy.  I always look forward to the
 beginning of a new semester or a new project for the energy it
 brings me.

 Agile software developers know that, on top of these reasons,
 short projects offer another potent advantage: more opportunities
 to take stock of what we have learned and feed that learning back
 into what we do.
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