Monthly Archives: December 2019

Efficient Expediency?

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Steve, Tobbe and I were discussing actions and the differences between working in efficient ways and working in expedient ways.

Efficient is a non-judgemental word and rather clinical – are we working in ways that reduce or eliminate the waste of resources, effort, time and money?

Expediency has a moral element – doing things in ways that are convenient regardless of whether they are morally the right things to do.

I did not notice my attitude to visual management changing – it struck me only recently. When I first started to work with cards on the wall, I thought it was about accountability. I would feel awful if I pointed to a card that I said I would finish yesterday and I still had not completed it today. Now I feel fine using cards on the wall to see how the work is flowing. It gives me ways to capture data and articulate where the workflow is being impacted. The focus is not on me and my accountability (there are plenty of other ways to look after that in the workplace) – the focus is on how we can make the system of work flow better.

Getting back to the words – expedient and efficient. Kanban-style visual management is a very efficient way to visualise the work in order to improve it, it allows us to see queues of work that are otherwise invisible. I have also heard horror stories of it being used to victimise people – it is an expedient tool in that respect. Someone could stand at the board, point at a card and interrogate the team about who is working on it, why it has not moved and yelling could happen. Unfortunately expediency also often includes efficiency.

Because I had not noticed the change in my attitude, I am careful to explain the difference when speaking to others who are new to visual management – it is likely that they may be feeling the accountability side just as I did at first.

 

OBSERVATIONS IN HOW THINGS GO 2

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As a society based in the post Industrial revolution, where productivity and maximising profit rule the landscape and dictate our daily lives. We strive for “Efficiency” in our work lives and even our daily lives and many of us never really think about what we’re doing and the costs of our search for better, faster, more!

Efficiency vs Expediency.

Years ago I was developing a database, the demands placed upon the database were simplistic and basic. In essence it was a list, used to check the availability and validity of numbers. The idea was to wash a random bucket of numbers to see if they fit the criteria set by the customer. These numbers could have easily simply occupied a simplistic table format and been fine. The customer would have been happy and content yet, I found the basic minimal number of columns, data points inappropriate for the customers future needs.

Yes, I opted for Efficiency over Expediency. The reason was I have a scientific background and we never throw anything out, especially data. The data is only as good as your mindfulness and awareness while collecting it. Many a scientific study has suffered and been less important because basic and minor data was not collected during the experiment. In science I would never disregard any data which may be needed later. Anticipating future data needs and possible uses, is key to Efficiency.

So I was predisposed to put myself in the customers shoes and try and anticipate possible future data requirements. The upshot of this was that for very little extra effort, an extra few columns and a few extra lines of code; the customer could benefit from future data mining and analysis.

The effort required to develop the database was the same !

So why do we choose Expediency over actual Efficiency ?

The daily activity of trying to finish our work items steers us towards Rapid Solutions which seem Efficient; yet this very Expediency often costs many times more with rework, rebuilds and even the complete redevelopment when parameters shift as future needs become apparent.

The old saying “A stitch in time, saves nine” springs to mind. The mindfulness and mending of a small tear prevents the need for major reworking and effort.

So next time, ask yourself is this done for Expediency or actual Efficiency, and hopefully we can get a head of the curve and put our future efforts into better things than Rework.

The way I see this is that most of us try to do the best we can but a few remind me of the Ferreters of old who would let go any pregnant female rabbits so they would get work next year, to reduce the rabbit population.

Expediency has become our efficiency.

Action and Activity

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Action – doing something that will result in a valuable outcome

Activity – doing something – regardless of the result

We tend to think that if we are not doing something then we are not being productive – we need to be cautious of doing things because we think that more is better. There are many examples where more is not better – even drinking water. We need to stay hydrated and we think that drinking more water is better for us – but over a certain amount, it can cause toxic and dangerous effects on our bodies.

Since the discussion with Tobbe and Steve recently, I’ve been reflecting about times in my life when I’ve mistaken activity for action – there’s more than I’d care to admit at this point.

We should check what we are doing and ask ourselves – is it activity for the sake of activity or are we taking action and making progress – whatever the endeavour? To answer this we need to understand purpose.

One of my favourite things to check is the purpose of reports that are being generated. I’ve seen situations where there are 100’s and 1000’s of reports – and no one really knows how they are being used. The activity version of a report, likely came from an initial need to make a decision – let us imagine that we needed 3 types of data to make that decision – so we ask for a report every week with those 3 types of data. And then – due to the ephemeral role of data in decision making – we quickly discover that we need another 2 elements of data. Very quickly, we can have a report being generated every week with lots of data elements. A lovely amount of activity – but what if we are not making those decisions any more? And there are better ways to gather data when we need to make a decision – reports can be very . inefficient.

Whatever we are doing, ask about the purpose of it. Is it activity for the sake of doing something? (And therefore can we stop doing it?). Or is it action? (And we should continue).