Multi Tasking in Bid Management

A couple of days ago, I read a fascinating blog post on the perils of multi-tasking. Though I have been aware of how bad multitasking can be (for example, Demarco and Lister wrote a decade ago in their fabulous book Peopleware about how interruptions like even a telephone call can break the 'flow' of a programmer hard at work on his program), I am guilty of multi tasking all the time. Knowing, as they say, is the easier half; doing is the much more difficult half. When I am in boring conference calls for example, my hand automatically opens the browser and takes me to my favourite web hangouts or to my pending emails. When I am driving and hear an incoming SMS, I am itching to open it by the time I reach the next red.

Bid management is no exception and here too this terrible habit is visible all the time. Most of the bid war rooms I have been in, I see people opening up their laptops and typing feverishly even while we are supposed to be brainstorming an important point. They don't contribute (though they do look like they are part of the discussion since they are sitting in the room where the discussion is going on), they make you revisit things having missed most of the crucial discussions, and they almost invariably miss the nuances of decisions and story lines. Without a doubt this seriously affects the quality of the proposal submitted or the impact of the defense presentation the next day!

I even had a boss who would be working non stop on his emails throughout our 20 minute 'one-on-one' bid review meeting. There seems to be no easy way of getting away from this.

The concept itself is really simple and nothing new. Thirty odd years ago, I was told by my third standard teacher in the Appa Iyer School in Kalpathy that the best way to ace any exam is by 'paying attention in class'. I am sure the word multi-tasking did not even exist then!

1 comments :: Multi Tasking in Bid Management

  1. Ya, I too agree that people try to do multiple things at the same time. The desire finishing things with in short time or at the same time will make them to take such ineffective steps. Lack of planning, organising and a certain inner acceptence of the situation are the reasons(to my opinion). We can say that it exists, only when the desired results are possible.
    I can do E-mailing during my meeting and at the same time i can bid in ebay and think about my next meeting. As you also say that it is not effective, which means it would not give the desired results. Can we say that it exists?

    There are several ways of doing things. Just the possibility of doing things cannot be termed as the logical process and shall be used in the daily business life. We can also eat food, taking the hand round about our neck. It is a possibility. But does it exist. People who are loaded with nonsence in their head might try to do so, but shall we consider that it exists?

    My intention is, just because foolishness is among majority, it shall not become the right thing. It has to be condemed as non existence only

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