| How do organizations and the people in them find the time to do
what is really important? They clear the decks. They take a detailed
look at all of their activities and decide which to continue, which
to eliminate, which to relocate in some other organization and which
to redesign. The goal is to manage time more effectively and more
strategically.
Recently one of our state agency clients finished the first phase
of their clearing the decks effort - and what a phase. They began
by listing all of their activities and the time committed to each
one. The results were eye opening. 722 activities appeared on the
list. In total these activities required 307,000 hours of agency
time - the equivalent of 185 full time employees. The largest 5
% of the activities, consumed 30% of the time.
Once they had the list, the rated each activity based on its contribution
to the purposes or goals of the organization. That data opened people's
eyes even further. They found that meetings, training (both giving
and receiving), e-mail and voice-mail, and time sheets consistently
got low ratings. Not a surprise. What was a surprise was that these
activities consumed 15% of the time available.
When the senior staff met to review the data they identified 5
potential actions they could take - all with the goal of reallocating
time to connect agency activities more directly to their strategy.
The options they will now consider include:
-
Redesigning or eliminating the low rated activities to make them
more strategically relevant.
- Redesigning
the activities that consume the most time to reduce the time required
by a specified amount.
- Challenging
each division to reduce the time committed to activities that
are of secondary importance to achieving the mission.
- Establishing
a long term time budget and strategy that specifies the desired
allocation of time among major activity types (e.g. data gathering
vs. analysis vs. reporting).
- Re-engineering
key processes that are made up of many activities within the agencies
that are linked together.
Time, for this agency, is the resource they manage least well.
Through their clearing the decks effort they have recognized the
consequences and the opportunities of how they manage this limited
resource.
|
