“I think it’s shared the overload out… there’s still overload but it’s shared out now, so instead of coming back to the office and there’s fifteen e-mails, I can be looking at them quite frequently when I’m away from the office, So, in actual fact, when I get into my office to do my work, it’s a manageable volume.” (force, 5)
One of the key issues in a manager using mobile devices while away from the office is the concept of multi-tasking. While I’m sure that almost any manager is questioned on their ability to multi-task during their entrance interview, current research goes to show that multi-tasking actually hinders managers in some very distinct ways. The first, and probably the most counter-intuitive, is that multitasking actually slows us down. Studies have shown that individuals that complete two separate task by multitasking, versus just completing one task before starting and completing the next, took up to thirty percent longer to complete the tasks and made twice as many errors (recovering, 64). While the officers felt that taking time to read and respond to a message while they were out in the field lessened their workload when they would return to their office, in all actuality they could have not only been increasing the amount of time required to complete both tasks and perhaps even reducing the quality of both end products. This could come into play when coupling with one of the major complaints of the officers regarding e-mail traffic on their Blackberry devices. Many of the officers stated that they would keep other individuals “in the loop” by including them on the cc: of a message. They felt that this would create an audit trail and ensure that there were not any gaps in the lines of communication (force 5). This issue presents two problems, with the first being that many of the individuals were receiving information that was not relevant to their role. This requires those officers to take time to read a message that was sent to them, just to determine at the conclusion that it was not relevant to them specifically. If you add the potential errors that could have been generated in the message due to the officer multitasking, an individual that would need the information in the message could be receiving incorrect information that could create potential issues at a later time.
Another potential issue with multitasking is that is has been shown to lead to higher levels of stress hormones. A study conducted by Reuters identified that two-thirds of the study’s respondents believed that multitasking lessened their job satisfaction and damaged their personal relationships. It was also apparent in this study that the police force had no strategy on how to cope with the usage of these devices outside of work hours, other than each individual developing their own personal strategies on device usage. Most officers would just develop their own times for responding to messages based on their own after-work habits. Some would just turn the device off at certain times, while others felt that they could spread out the pressure of the work day by answering messages during their downtime (force, 6). While at first I believed that developing a usage protocol could have been a potential improvement opportunity for the force, some of my research shifted my perspective. In reading an interview of Geoff Parcell, who is an independent consultant dealing in knowledge management, his perspective provided some clarity on how an organization should handle the situation. He believes that organizations should start with their own self-assessment of how they can best manage the situation, and then pick the techniques that they are comfortable with and identify where they need to improve (interview, 728). While I do feel that the department did not totally fulfill this idea, they did let their personnel determine their own methodology for usage of their mobile devices.
One of the major issues causes of personal information overload that was identified in the study came from the overabundance of email messages. Many of the offices in the study identified e-mails as the primary cause of information overload during their work day. Surprisingly, the officers felt that this problem was not enhanced by the introduction of the Blackberry’s, and that they in fact helped to speed up their decision making process. They felt that it enabled them to respond to information requests in a timelier manner (force, 7). One of the frustrations identified in the study dealt specifically with the design of the Blackberry device itself. Blackberry devices are normally equipped with a much smaller version of the standard keyboards that are present on most standard computers. Crafting a message on these devices can be much slower and more time consuming than drafting a message on a computer. That led to the officers drafting very short and concise messages that provided very little detail. This created the problem of the message not being detailed enough for the end-user to make a decision on the information provided, and forced them to request additional information. It appeared that the organization just chose to stand pat on this email process, and forced its officers to send numerous messages back and forth to one another. This created a vast increase in the amount of time for individual that were receiving these truncated Blackberry messages, thus increasing their information processing time. A potential solution to this problem could be the implementation of an email training program that would increase the productivity of all e-mail users (email, 173).
The study did identify that the department basically depended on each individual to develop their own coping strategy on how they felt they could interact most effectively with their devices. These officers predominately chose the Focus, Filter, and Forget method that was outlined by Peter Drucker in The Effective Executive. While this method can greatly reduce or eliminate some of the problems identified by multitasking, they each have some of their own issues. The first technique that was identified in the study was the filtering technique. The officers were described as the “fire-fighting approach”. This was summarized by the officers addressing the messages on their mobile devices in the order in which they could be answered the easiest. While this would give the appearance that the officers had
Research Question: In today’s age of mobile, always on organizations, how does a manager ensure that their employees connected via technology, but not encumbered?
Case Study:
Allen, D., & Shoard, M. (2005). Spreading the load: mobile information and communications technologies and their effect on information overload. Information research, 10(2), 227-242. Retrieved from
This article provides information on how the West Yorkshire Police Force and how their senior managers equipped with Blackberry phones dealt with information overload. The authors conducted extensive research into the topic, gathering 48 articles and publications that were cited throughout their 13 page study. Dr. Allen is currently a professor at the Leeds University Business School and he holds a PhD in Information Management for Sheffield University in the UK. He is also a founder member of the UKAIS Northern Group and a founder member of the Research Network for Mobile Interaction & Pervasive Social Devices. His experience in mobile interactions really provided
Dean, D., & Webb, C. (2011). Recovering from information overload. Mckinsey Quarterly, (1), 80-88.
The article on recovering from information overload provided some insight on how managers can deal with the burdons of mobile technology. It also provides some supplemental information that complements some of the findings within the case study quite well. The article highlights three key tacticts that can be used to overcome information overload. Mr. Dean and Ms. Webb have written numerous articles dealing with the management realm, although this was their first dealings specifically with information overload. Mr. Dean received his MBA from Stanford University and was the director of Mckinsey & Company, who publishes the scholarly journal Mckinsey Quarterly.
Joley, A., & Maret, P. (2010). Between social awareness and productivity: results of a survey about real time microblogging. First monday, 15(11), Retrieved from http://www.firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3125/2645
This article deals with the aspects of microblogging sites like Twitter and their effect on information overload. The article surveyed 256 users of microblogs and used the results to identify opportunities to reduce information overload. The authors use other references as well as their survey results to provided more substance to their findings. Adrien Joly is a PhD candidate researching on Ambient Awareness / Context-Aware Social Networks for the Social Communications department of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs France, in collaboration with CNRS-affiliated laboratories of University of Lyon and under supervision of the additional author Pr. Pierre MARET. He received a Master Degree of Computer Science from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon in 2006.
Parcell, G. (2005, October). Interview by Bhatia J [Personal Interview]. 'learning to fly’ in a world of information overload. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626413/pdf/16283046.pdf
This article was based on an interview with Geoff Parcell who co-authored a best-selling book on knowledge management. His recent work with the World Health Organization was based around educating their staff on dealing with information overload. This article provided insight from a subject matter expert in the field and from someone who has published information in this arena. It also gives some great examples of techniques that were used in a large organization like the WHO to manage information overload.
Sandi, L., & Saccol, A. (2010). Information overload due to the adoption of mobile and wireless information technologies and its consequences to sales professionals. Manuscript submitted for publication, University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos
This paper focuses on the analysis of information overload due to use of wireless and mobile information technology. The paper surveyed 75 salespeople working in the Rio Grande do Sul area and their interactions with WMIT. This survey points out some of the benefits of WMIT, but also how it can create difficulties for a professional to focus their attention to regular tasks. While this paper provides some great detail on mobile technology’s role in creating information overload, the paper was originally published in Portuguese. This created diffuiculty due to finding a program to translate the document to English. But, it was the best resource available on mobile technology and information overload.
by
rossiv4k (student)
