Making Work Visible

We tell ourselves that there are not enough hours in the day.
The problem is that we don’t protect our hours from being stolen. We allow thieves to steal time from us, day after day after day.
There are five thieves of time, which if we could see and measure the impact of, could help us improve our performance.

Transcript

1. Dominica DeGrandis Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow Dominica DeGrandis
2. @dominicad
3. Dominica DeGrandis The 5 Thieves of Time
4. @dominicad
5. The all day cram The 30 minute jam The triple booked wham @dominicad
6. The 30 minute jam @dominicad 10 meetings a day - perpetual stop and go - exacerbates context switching
7. Back-to-back 7am to 7pm meetings leave zero flexible time § no room for unexpected important urgent work § disappointed people § cancelled meetings (how often cancelled?) § How much time is wasted rescheduling meetings? The all day cram
8. A canceled meeting creates rework – which has a cost The triple booked wham • Can’t be in 3 places at 1 time. • If no-show person disagrees w/ decision made, then rework occurs to rehash decision. • When the right brains aren’t at the meeting, decisions get delayed. • What’s the cost of delay to your biz? @dominicad
9. A canceled meeting creates rework – which has a cost The triple booked wham • Can’t be in 3 places at 1 time. • If no-show person disagrees w/ decision made, then rework occurs to rehash decision. • When the right brains aren’t at the meeting, decisions get delayed. • What’s the cost of delay to your biz? @dominicad
10. @dominicad 1. Maker calendar: Creative people (developers, designers, writers 2. Manager calendar: Decision makers 3 Calendar Solutions A new approach to calendars Each type of schedule serves its purpose - except when the two collide. Meetings cost creative maker ppl more. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long
11. @dominicad 1. Maker calendar: Creative people (developers, designers, writers 2. Manager calendar: Decision makers 3 Calendar Solutions A new approach to calendars Each type of schedule serves its purpose - except when the two collide. Meetings cost creative maker ppl more. Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long
12. Ultradium cycles: brain naturally gets lull in concentration every 90 – 120 min when awake b/c brain wave frequencies rise, then sink. https://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/science/rhythms/ Maker calendar
13. “Quality doesn’t happen on 4 hours of sleep”
14. Unstructured time after dept meetings Manager calendar Leadership is in a position to make everyone meet at their frequency. mgrs meet w/ other mgrs during prime maker time Office hours DND Office hours LT daily LT daily LT daily LT daily LT daily DND
15. Unstructured time after dept meetings Manager calendar Leadership is in a position to make everyone meet at their frequency. mgrs meet w/ other mgrs during prime maker time Office hours DND Office hours LT daily LT daily LT daily LT daily LT daily DND
16. Office hours A regular cadence of office hours signals times when people can schedule time on your calendar, or drop by for important discussions. @dominicad Viz Eng/Ops Meeting time at end of working day – to reduce extended long mtgs.
17. Set a regular cadence to let people know when you are available and when you are not available. @dominicad Do-not-disturb hours The goal for undoing the all day cram begins with allocating time to do your most important work.
18. @dominicad Pomodoro’s • Break down work into time- boxed intervals separated by short breaks. • Set timer for 25 or 30 min and work intensely to finish task before timer rings. • Pomodoro’s provide intense focus time.
19. “But that won’t work here.”
21. @dominicad UNPLANNED WORK
22. Dominica DeGrandis Thief Unplanned Work Unplanned Work: Interruptions that prevent you from finishing something or from stopping at a better breaking point. Unplanned Work is a time thief b/c unplanned work usurps planned work @dominicad UNPLANNED WORK
23. Dominica DeGrandis Unplanned Work: Interruptions that prevent you from finishing something or from stopping at a better breaking point. Unplanned Work is a time thief b/c unplanned work usurps planned work @dominicad UNPLANNED WORK
24. CONFLICTING PRIORITIES @dominicad
25. Dominica DeGrandis Thief Conflicting Priorities Projects and tasks that compete with each other. Conflicting Priorities is a time thief b/c people take on too much WIP when priorities are unclear.
26. Line of commitment @dominicad
27. DEPENDENCIES We work in webs of interdependencies https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/towards-true-continuous-integration- distributed-repositories-and-dependencies-2a2e3108c051
29. UNMASK DEPENDENCIES
30. Dominica DeGrandis Thief Neglected Work Neglected Work is partially completed work that gets postponed. It’s work that sits idle on the bench waiting for attention. Neglected work is a time thief b/c it either gets in the way of higher value work or it delays the delivery of important work. NEGLECTED WORK
31. Dominica DeGrandis Thief Neglected Work Neglected Work is partially completed work that gets postponed. It’s work that sits idle on the bench waiting for attention. Neglected work is a time thief b/c it either gets in the way of higher value work or it delays the delivery of important work.
32. Dominica DeGrandis @dominicad Thief Too much Work-in-progress (WIP) TOO MUCH Work-in-Progress (WIP) Too much WIP: When demand exceeds capacity. Lots of partially completed work. WIP is leading indicator of CT. Multitasking is an opportunity to screw up more than 1 thing at a time.
33. done doing study Silver Bullet Team improvements validate Business requests (5) (3) (1) TOO MUCH WIP
34. @dominicad Inspired by Troy Magennis & Larry Maccherone, “Doing Team Metrics Right,” http://focusedobjective.com/team-metrics-right/ How to get buy in to undo the all-day cram Measure at least one metric trend in 4 different areas. • How fast • How productive • How good • How predictable
35. MATERIALS: § Blank balanced flowchart § Data spreadsheet www.ddegrandis.com @dominicad Balanced Flowchart Exercise
36. Look at Flow time www.ddegrandis.com.co @dominicad Balanced Flow chart exercise – How Fast?
37. Look at Throughput www.ddegrandis.com @dominicad Balanced Flow chart exercise – How productive?
38. www.ddegrandis.com Look at Quality change failure rate (CFR) # of FD done items # of total done items @dominicad Balanced Flow chart exercise – How good?
39. Consider the 90th percentile to discuss the probability of finishing work within so many days. 90th percentile filtered on business requests www.ddegrandis.com Balanced Flow chart exercise – How predictable? @dominicad
40. “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.” ~Warren Buffett https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/756.Warren_Buffett
41. Dominica DeGrandis @dominicad
42. Email: dominica@SendYourSlides.com Subject: flow To receive: • copy of this presentation deck • Videos of my talks • 73 pg excerpt of Making Work Visible • 45 min excerpt of Making Work Visible audiobook • Balanced Flow Chart exercise • Tasktop article on tool integration
43. CSRA Team Sparrow Hawks Kevin Kirkpatrick @dominicad
44. @dominicad CONFLICTING PRIORITIES
45. @dominicad TOO MUCH WIP