FlowLight

FlowTeams has been productively tested with over 100 people in more than a dozen organizations (the majority from the Zurich area) and scientifically evaluated in a field study. The results are currently being prepared for a scientific publication and can be summarized as follows:

• Regularly scheduling and automatically sharing personal focus time with the team enables people to work in a more concentrated manner and make progress on their own tasks, especially during hectic workdays. These blocks are usually about an hour long. They have a positive influence on one’s own productivity and reduce stress, since especially introverts and autistic people are no longer constantly interrupted and communication takes place in a more structured way.
• At the same time, FlowTeams supports team leads in finding a better balance between focused work and teamwork by enabling them to define their availability for interactions and absences in an uncomplicated way and make them available to the team in a transparent manner. As a result, blockages can be prevented early on or resolved in a more timely manner.
• The way FlowTeams are used differs between teams and depends, among other things, on the communication culture, the type of work and the regularity of unplanned events or tasks. Users have independently customized FlowTeams according to their own preferences. For example, completing an unscheduled focus time for the next 30 minutes when the work has made this possible on short notice.
• In general, FlowTeams leads to an increased awareness of the benefits of focused work and efficient teamwork. This has led to many teams taking time to reflect on their collaboration culture and optimize it together.

The positive results and the fact that almost all participating organizations continue to use FlowTeams after the study underlines the potential of the approach. Follow-up projects will now evaluate and drive further development and possible productization.