I think by now we all understand that having too many things in progress at once is a negative on almost all counts. We get less accomplished, our quality drops, and we generally feel more overwhelmed. Yet, we continue to start more work than we can finish, over and over again. Why might this be?
In a therapeutic context, we talk about primary and secondary gains for any behaviour. The primary gain are those explicit reasons that we would give if someone asked us why we did that. The secondary gains are all of the other benefits we get from that behaviour that are less obvious. Strangely, the secondary gains are often more powerful than the primary ones.
Let’s look at an example: if someone says that they want to stop smoking then their primary gain is likely around health. They want their health to improve. They want to breathe easier. They have some clear goal in mind for why they wish to stop. If you ask someone why they want to quit, this is a common reason they might give.
Yet, if this were the only gain then it would be easy to quit, and as we know, it’s rarely easy.
Secondary gain for many smokers is in relationships. When they have that smoke, they’re rarely doing that alone. They get together with their fellow smokers and they reestablish social connections. For these people, giving up smoking also means giving up this social connection, and now that’s in direct competition with the health benefits.
This is why so many smokers continue to smoke, even though they confidently state, and often even believe, that they want to quit. The primary gain is theoretical and in the future, and therefore less tangible. The secondary gain is immediate, and powerful. If I quit, I feel the loss of those relationships right away, compared to the potential improved health in the future.
Back to work in progress (WIP). We all understand that finishing work is far more important than starting new work, and yet we continue to start more and more, while finishing very little of it.
The primary gain is in finishing work, and this is what we would tell anyone who asks. I’m starting this because it needs to get done and if I don’t start it now, it won’t get done in time. Yet, if we really think about it, starting each new item makes it less likely that anything else already in progress will get done on time.
The secondary gain in this case, is in avoiding the judgement from not taking something seriously when it’s brought to us. If we don’t start it right away, then we’ll be judged. That judgement is immediate and painful, while the gain from actually completing the work is in the future, with a smaller reward.
- I’m asked for a favour and I want to be helpful so I start that thing.
- A piece of work arrives that is urgent for someone and I want to be a “team player” so I start it.
- I’m waiting for something that’s outside my control and I feel pressure to always be busy so I start something new instead of waiting for the thing that’s blocked.
As the amount of work in progress increases, we get fewer and fewer things done, and the ones that are done, tend to have lower quality. Just as with the smoker whose health continues to decline, we’re getting worse by not staying focused on the primary gain.
How do we reverse this?
If the secondary gains are around relationships then we can find ways to say no that doesn’t damage those relationships. If we can can say “I want to help, but the team agreed that all requests have to go through this process…“ then I’m off the hook. I’m at less of a risk of damaging that relationship, because it’s outside of my control. I’m retaining my secondary gain, which also achieving the primary gain of getting the work done.
Keep in mind that if you’re doing either Scrum or Kanban then there are already rules in place around limiting how much work you can do at once. Scrum does that with a timebox, and Kanban does it with more explicit limits. We don’t have to make up new fictitious rules to get off the hook, those rules are already in place and we’re supposed to be following them.
We should also have team working agreements, and they can include things like this if we need to be more explicit. “Any new requests have to come through our product owner”, for example.
When we see people doing things that are clearly not in their best interest, we should be looking for the secondary gain. What are they getting from this behaviour and how could we replace that if we want them to do something different?