This work explores the problem of how to increase knowledge worker productivity by performing a systematic literature review of personal productivity self-help books. The assumption was that personal productivity self-help books are based on the same underlying concepts and that these concepts can give insight into the personal productivity of the knowledge worker. The intent was to identify these concepts, compare them to the state-of-the-art on knowledge worker productivity and the software development method Scrum. The working hypothesis was that Scrum can create the environment and provide the tools needed by the knowledge worker to perform to his highest potential and produce value for the organization. The research design followed the guidelines for systematic reviews in software engineering by Kitchenham (2004). The research scope was based on a definition of personal productivity. Forty personal productivity self-help guides were chosen in a fair and systematic way from Amazon.com using a software program and rigid selection criteria. These books were read and analyzed by one researcher. Twenty-six concepts of personal productivity were identified and defined from the forty personal productivity self-help books. The concepts were compared to the definition of knowledge workers, personal productivity and ten knowledge worker productivity factors and found to be relevant to the personal productivity of the knowledge worker. The concepts were also mapped to the software development method, Scrum.
Author(s): Óskarsdóttir, Helga Guðrún
Edition: 1
Publisher: Faculty of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science University of Iceland
Year: 2014
Language: English
City: Reykjavik
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Theoretical Background 3
2.1 Knowledge Workers 3
2.2 Personal Productivity 5
2.3 Ten Knowledge Worker Productivity Factors 6
2.4 Scrum 8
3 Research Design 11
3.1 Research Scope 12
3.2 Search Strategy 13
3.2.1 Connection to Amazon.com 13
3.2.2 The Software Used to Perform the Search 14
3.3 Selection Strategy 16
3.4 Data Extraction and Data Synthesis Strategy 17
3.4.1 Identifying Personal Productivity Concepts 18
3.4.2 Comparison with the Theories of Personal Productivity of Knowledge
Workers 18
3.4.3 Mapping to the Concepts of the Scrum Framework 18
4 Software Design 19
5 Research Execution 25
5.1 Search 26
5.2 Selection 27
5.3 Data Extraction and Synthesis 31
6 Results 35
6.1 Common Underlying Concepts from the Self-Help Books 35
6.2 Relevance to Personal Productivity of Knowledge Workers 39
6.2.1 Knowledge Workers and the Concepts 39
6.2.2 Personal Productivity and the Concepts 41
6.2.3 The Ten Knowledge Worker Productivity Factors and the Concepts 42
6.3 Personal Productivity Concepts and Scrum 43
7 Personal Productivity Concepts 49
viii
8 Discussions and Conclusion 67
8.1 Personal Productivity 68
8.2 Personal Productivity and Scrum 71
8.3 Conclusion .72
References 75
Appendices 79
Appendix A: Results 81
A.1. Book Summaries 81
Appendix B: Data Synthesis .91
Appendix C: Data Extraction 117
C.1 Data Extraction Form .117
C.2 Author Data Extraction Form .121
Appendix D: Selection 123
D.1 Selection Execution .123
D.2 Selected Books .124
D.3 Excluded Books 127
D.3.1 About Organizational Productivity 127
D.3.2 About Managing Others & Leadership 132
D.3.3 Industry Specific 136
D.3.4 Not on Amazon Salesrank (is Zero) 139
D.3.5 About Life Fulfillment 141
D.3.6 Not Hardcover or Paperback 143
D.3.7 About Communications or Manipulation 144
D.3.8 Only One Book Per Author 145
D.3.9 About Team Productivity 146
D.3.10 Tool Specific 147
D.3.11 Too Specific Target Group 147
D.3.12 Job Hunting 148
D.3.13 Religion Specific 148
D.3.14 Summery Book 148
Appendix E: Search 149
E.1 Book Category Exclusion 149
E.1.2 Included Book Categories 150
E.1.3 Excluded Book Categories 150
E.2 Book Search Execution .153
E.2.1 Search Results 153
E.3 ReviewSearchHelper, Setup and Running 154
