[pekk]

Wow. You think that time I spend coding features you asked for is not helping you?

Then at the end of the week, I am still giving an accounting of why a feature isn't finished on a schedule given by the same people who were interrupting the work I was doing to satisfy their stated priorities.

I'm amazed at how you totally ignore that this makes people miserable and contributes to bad management.

Why not learn to use email to ask a question?

[ryanbrunner]

I don't think anyone is arguing that writing features isn't helping the company in general, and the individuals that asked for it - but that's not the only way developers can help other individuals within a company:

- Developers can ask other developers questions when they're stuck on a certain problem. In my experience, developers waste far more time when they're stuck on a problem then when they're interrupted.

- QA / PM / whoever is on your "team" can ask quick, simple questions, that are either too small for an e-mail, or would seriously slow them down if they had to write the e-mail, wait for a developer to check e-mail, write a response, etc. Again, in my experience, developers routinely underestimate how much inefficiency having QA / PM / whatever blocked while they wait for information from a developer generates.

E-mail has it's uses, and the fact that some questions are better suited to a quick face-to-face interruption doesn't mean that every question is, but there's definitely cases where it's not the right tool for the job.

[runako]

Do people not use IM/chat anymore? The problems with email you are describing are typically why I use chat.

[mh_yam]

QA / PM routinely underestimate how much inefficiency having developers blocked while they deal with queries from QA/PM generates.

[darkarmani]

> QA / PM / whoever is on your "team" can ask quick, simple questions, that are either too small for an e-mail, or would seriously slow them down if they had to write the e-mail, wait for a developer to check e-mail, write a response, etc. Again, in my experience, developers routinely underestimate how much inefficiency having QA / PM / whatever blocked while they wait for information from a developer generates.

It should slow them down. If they are blocked multiple times a day, it isn't the communication method that is the problem, it is the process. Interrupting developers multiple times a day is not the solution.

[logfromblammo]

Or better yet, an internal board or wiki, so the same question does not get asked repeatedly.