How We Waste Time: II

One reason why we waste as much time as we do is that some time wasting masquerades as real work, or, at least, as prudent risk management. We continue now with our catalog of techniques for wasting time, focusing on these more subtle techniques. See "How We Waste Time: I," Point Lookout for October 5, 2016 for some more blatant examples.

Write-only metrics data

Much of the world is in the midst of a decades-old metrics fad. We gather data, but even when we analyze it, we don't always act on it. When we do act, the value generated can be far less than the cost of data acquisition and analysis. To address this, gather and analyze data about the costs and benefits of gathering and analyzing data. Prepare to be shocked. One shock: why, when we measure the costs and benefits of so many processes, do we so rarely measure the costs and benefits of measuring costs and benefits?

Distrusting experts

Some teams lack expertise, but are nevertheless engaged in difficult work. To manage the risk of error, we review their results in detail. But some teams actually know what they're doing. Their work might also benefit from review, but must we review that work as closely as we review the work of the less-than-expert teams? Can we not reduce review costs without increasing risk?

Training at the wrong time

Sometimes we waste training. For example, learning a technique that we plan to use in the distant future can be futile if that future never arrives. Learning to use software or hardware too soon can also be wasteful if we need the knowledge only after the next release or model becomes available, when that knowledge has been invalidated by the new release.

Pointless debate

Some of us Some of us tend to engage in debates
that seem crucial to the debaters,
but which bystanders easily
recognize as pointlesstend to engage in debates that seem crucial to the debaters, but which bystanders easily recognize as pointless. Often, the debate isn't really about what it appears to be about. Rather, it can be little more than a disguised dominance struggle. Supervisors must recognize these debates for the performance issues that they are, and intervene appropriately.

Technical debt interest payments

Technical debt is the accumulated set of technical artifacts — hardware and software — that ought to be retired, replaced, rewritten, or re-implemented. As long as these artifacts remain in place, they accumulate "interest charges" by adding to the effort required to operate the enterprise or to maintain or enhance its assets. Technical debt remains in place, in part, because most organizations are unaware of its scale. These organizations lack any means of accounting for either technical debt or the interest paid on it. Technical solutions to this problem are available, but in my view, the problem is fundamentally political. [Brenner 2016.1]

Every organization has its own specific sources of wasted time. What can you find in your organizaton?   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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Footnotes

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Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 11: White Water Rafting as a Metaphor for Group Development

Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing," applies better to development of some groups than to others. We can use a metaphor to explore how the model applies to Storming in task-oriented work groups. Available here and by RSS on December 11.

And on December 18: Subgrouping and Conway's Law

When task-oriented work groups address complex tasks, they might form subgroups to address subtasks. The structure of the subgroups and the order in which they form depend on the structure of the group's task and the sequencing of the subtasks. Available here and by RSS on December 18.

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