Research for this thesis was aimed at investigating the historical relationship between time-management and productivity, particularly of multimedia development projects, from a socio-cultural perspective; and how the implementation of developer-friendly time-management procedures can improve cyber-productivity while providing a good working environment for developers.

The study attempts to redefine the currently applied time–management procedures on the basis of a ‘Foucauldian' analysis of the new cyber-workshop , or online working environment, and construct a developer-oriented, (or developer-friendly) yet cost-effective and productive methodology for their adoption and implementation. Most time-management procedures currently used by multimedia developers are derived from generic project management procedures which have their historical origins in Taylorism's Scientific Management. By focusing on the interests of the developer rather than the enterprise, this research constitutes the first attempt at reconciling the entirely new managerial styles required for multimedia project management with the constraints imposed by financial and commercial imperatives.

Researchers have identified the implementation of effective time-management procedures as being an intractable problem in multimedia development ( Marshall , 1994), and other theorists have suggested that very little research has been directed at investigating the entirely new situation of online workers. This research explores the new workplace relations pertinent to online workers, and the need for entirely new concepts of time-management for the development of multimedia products and services.