The Cost of Context Switching

Leading a startup that depends on inventing new technology requires mastering the balance of context switching. Too much kills innovation. Too little means losing touch with what is essential.

Both scanning and deep-problem solving are necessary for the innovation required to realize a great technology-based startup. Consequently, you need both points of view and types of work in the team.  This is one of those ways that a team of complementary, high-performing individuals outperforms any single person. One of the critical details towards realizing the potential of such a team is actively managing context switching.   

What is Context Switching?

Context switching is the put-down and pick-up effort required when changing between chunks of problem-solving work.  

To understand the costs of context switching, you need to start with understanding the contrast between “deep work” and “broad work.” The difference hinges on how many factors or elements you have to keep in mind simultaneously to do the work. The complexity of the problem-solving required to do the work is the root of what makes work shift along the spectrum from broad to deep.  By the way, I do not want to imply that either broad or deep work is more inherently valuable. While problem-solving complexity can be related to the work’s potential value, there is often tremendous value in work that is not necessarily complex from a problem-solving perspective but is valuable because it is responsive or driving forward progress.

Factors that make some work “deep” are:

• The more dimensions and relationships, the greater the complexity of the problem-solving.
• The greater the novelty and creative innovation required, the greater the complexity of the work. For example, working on a proof of concept or first-ever prototype is inherently more difficult than using a known pattern or pathway to solve a familiar problem. Inevitably innovation involves more experimentation, false starts, and failures than applying tested, tried, and true solutions.
• Deep work is often highly technical.
• Deep work often involves headphones to minimize distractions.

Factors that make some work “broad” are:

• Broad work involves pursuing many different threads together simultaneously. 
• Broad work can be scanning, filtering, prioritizing, interfacing, and context-gathering work.
• Broad work can be making forward-progress happen by scheduling the next value-adding meeting by getting the right people aligned and prepared, finding the right cadence for maximum progress, defining agendas, and clarifying questions.
• Broad work is often managerial or sales or service-oriented team members.
• Broad work often involves lots of communicating with other people.

What is the Cost of Context Switching?

Context switching is much more costly when doing “deep work.”

The cost of context switching for deep work lies in the time it takes to bring into mind all the factors and interrelationships required to problem-solve.  There are often many elements that need to be brought to the surface of your consciousness for complex problem-solving and held in tension with one another as you search for first a workable and eventually an optimal solution.  The cost of context switching lies in the effort required to pick up all the pieces to begin considering them – and then putting them down and picking up some other set of elements to tackle a different problem. When I am talking about different problems here, I am not talking about different parts of a single complex problem, but about a truly disconnected complex problem (for example, two different products). The pick-up/put-down time between different problems can be significant enough that if you do not have sufficient time, you may get little to no actual problem-solving done.

In contrast, a hallmark of broad work is many meetings on varying topics in a row. This requires near-constant context switching and is challenging in its own right.  Success requires someone who can quickly raise up the vital information, do real-time synthesis, prioritizing, and decision-making, and move on to the next problem. Sometimes the only way to do this is to take some quiet time to prepare and have at the ready the important context and factors. From a cost of context-switching perspective, broad work is often closely associated with tasks where the cost of context switching is low, so it is easier to do a whole series of tasks in quick succession.

How to Manage Context Switching in a Team

For a team, effectively managing context-switching means balancing the dynamic tension between being agile and reacting quickly with the value-creation that often comes from deep work.

To effectively manage team members who are doing deep work, it is critical to create blocks of time and work environments where their focus is protected.  Minimize interruptions by making it okay to wear headphones, to be slow in responding to emails or slack messages, and batch meetings whenever possible so that when you need your team member(s) to be “shallow,” they can stay at that depth rather than trying to dive only to be interrupted by yet another meeting.  Also, make sure your startup’s culture supports team members’ requests for time to focus. You want it to be okay for team members to request others’ support to respect their focus for periods of time.

Of course, you can preserve the right to interrupt for emergencies, but make sure you only exercise the right for true emergencies.  Otherwise, group your interruptions into a sync-up meeting or ask your deep-diving team member to let you know when they reach a good breaking point to tackle other things before launching into the next phase of problem-solving, and remember that the timing on this might be quite variable.  As a rule of thumb, I often find it helpful to think of four-plus hour time blocks as sufficient for making meaningful progress on deep work. However, the overall process can often take days or weeks of big time blocks to solve significant problems or extensive work.

As a leader, an important trick is to keep an eye out for signs of “spinning” when a team member gets stuck in their problem-solving process and cannot find a way out. If you spot signs of that happening, intervene to give the team member permission to abandon a particular path or get them some help from another colleague or advisor to help break the logjam. Sometimes additional context around the problem and the most critical dimensions may help swing the balance towards a particular path.

The reality is that deep synthesis requires prolonged, quiet, uninterrupted time.  Often this is only available on nights and weekends, so make sure your team actually has them.  This is one of those secret failings of startup leadership that tries to get everyone “working” around the clock. By leaving too little room for team members to find that quiet, contemplative problem-solving space, you may be starving your startup of the deep insights that make the difference between success and failure. Try, of course, to create deep space within the normal work week, but do not underestimate the amount of “invisible” work that gets done in the quiet, in-between times.

As a startup leader, make sure you are conscious about protecting your team’s deep innovation time to maximize value creation. This takes attention and finesse; however, when done well, everyone reaps the benefits!