I am not scaling well. I am failing to effectively address any of my many ideas and responsibilities due to too much context switching. So what do I do?

I had an idea the other day about comparing the performance of a couple of technical approaches to a solution. In order to make some progress on the idea, I needed to bone up on some open source load testing tools, since none of the ones I'm familiar with are readily available. I decided to neglect other work related to a looming deadline. I wish I could add processing power to my brain to help with the problem, but I can't. I needed to raise the nice level on the processes related to my deadlines to make headway. This follows the types of strategies discussed in time management books and seminars: turn off email, prioritize tasks, finish them and move on. (so, BTW, I'm finishing this post now!)

As I was discussing my plan over coffee with a buddy, I drew an analogy between scaling software environments and challenges encountered by many of the leaders at the office. For a long time, capable leaders in my office, and many other offices, fulfill too many roles and responsibilities, such as  product management, project management, lead engineering, quality assurance, etc.  In a small company, capable people can easily fulfill these roles, but they quickly become less and less effective as the company grows. This, to me, is the root of what it means when people refer to a company going through growing pains and they fail to add people to focus on the various roles. Adding people to focus on specific roles as you grow frees up cycles, so others can effectively deal with growing demands. It's much like the hardware you chose to host your startup idea on.  It's very likely your initial deployment can sustain demand easily with web, service and database layers on a single server. As demand increases, you start by splitting up the layers, then adding to each. You would never expect the single server to support huge demand. As a matter of fact, your server cries "Uncle!" much quicker than people do.

Are you scaling well? If you are already practicing good time management techniques, take a hard look at the mix of your work. We are all being asked to do more in our current economic climate. Even so, consider crying "Uncle!" and ask for help. Your effectiveness and, by extension, your company's may suffer if you ignore the limits of your scalability.