Resource Management Warning Flag 2 – Parkinson’s Law
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
Parkinson’s Law
Wikipedia
There exists a tendency among workers to use all of the time allotted to perform a task even if the work can be done in a shorter period of time. Some organizations, through high accountability and managerial engagement, minimize the amount of lost time caused by unnecessary work expansion. In other organizations, however, a lack of managerial oversight and reinforcement of high performance standards allows the Thieves of Time to rob the organization of precious productivity.[wcm_restrict plans=”40855, 25542, 25653″]
Parkinson’s Law suggests that workers will fill the time allotted to perform work whether that time is needed or not. The three Thieves of Time comprising Parkinson’s Law include: the student syndrome, multitasking, and unassimilated advances. These Thieves of Time can be described as:
- The Student Syndrome: Tendency to delay the start of an activity until the perceived point at which any further delay would result in the activity being overdue. Problems arising during the performance of the activity typically result in a late completion. (Don’t forget Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong, will!”)
- Multitasking: Performance of several activities simultaneously. Time to start and restart an activity accumulates; lengthening the time to perform each activity as compared to that needed to perform the task in a start-to-finish manner.
- Unassimilated Advances: Accumulation of delays but not advances as work passes through a series of individual contributors. Here, a lack of communication regarding early work completion and/or a lack of preparation to begin work before its scheduled start time results in a failure to capture advances.
If left unchecked, the Thieves of Time will undermine an organization’s productivity and diminish its overall value. While not all inclusive, the four lists below, Process-Based Warning Flags, Process Execution Warning Flags – Behaviors, Potential, Observable Results, and Potential Causes, are designed to help leaders to recognize whether the Thieves of Time are at work within their organizations. Only after a problem is recognized and its causes identified can the needed action be taken to move the organization toward improved performance.
Process-Based Warning Flags
- no time reporting process
- no process to collect time to perform data associated with specific project tasks or work orders
- lack of a rigorous project scope control and/or project change management process
Process Execution Warning Flags – Behaviors
- individuals do not report time to perform specific work activities even if required to do so by procedure
- individuals consistently report time worked as 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week even if they worked more or less than this amount
- individuals record time worked from memory once every several days or more
- lack of executive and managerial challenge to time reports
- lack of executive and managerial challenge to time requirement estimates
- lack of supervisory oversight and observation of work
Potential, Observable Results
- excessive water cooler time, frequent long lunches, late arrivals, and/or early departures all with on schedule, on budget work completion at the desired quality level
- excessive time spent on personal emails and/or personal phone calls with on schedule, on budget work completion at the desired quality level
- excessive, perfectionist standards applied to all work with on schedule, on budget work completion
- products having additional out-of-scope features while being completed on time and on budget
- benchmarking consistently reveals higher competitor capacity and/or lower costs
Potential Causes
- executives and managers are uncomfortable with conflict and avoid challenging employees regarding their work practices
- executives and managers are not engaged with the workforce and their work practices
- executives and managers routinely assess a person’s value contribution based on how busy they appear, thereby, encouraging ‘busy work’
- individual contributor complacency
Final Thought…
Establishing and reinforcing high performance standards is critical to creating a culture of accountability. The existence of Parkinson’s Law within an organization suggests that the organization may suffer from diminished accountability. Thus, there may be several other opportunities to realize performance improvement by increasing the organization’s level of accountability. Insights to becoming a more accountable organization can be found in the members’ only category: Organizational Accountability.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”40855, 25542, 25653″]
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Additional Information
The following StrategyDriven recommended best practices are designed to promote high, performance-based activity time estimates:
- Resource Projection Best Practice 1 – Standardized Assumptions
- Resource Projection Best Practice 2 – Begin with the Work
- Resource Projection Best Practice 3 – Controlling Assumption Changes
Additional Resources
StrategyDriven Contributors recommend the following resource as a guide to the common methods used to estimate resource needs for an activity or project:
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition
by the Project Management Institute
About the Author
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
Recommended Resource – The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
by Thomas L. Friedman
About the Reference
The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Benefits of Using this Reference
Globalization of the marketplace presents new opportunities and new challenges to businesses of all sizes and people of all countries. As the speed of communication and transportation increases, so does the ability of a company or a person to deliver products and services anywhere in the world. With billions of highly educated and motivated people entering the marketplace from India and China, competition is increasing exponentially.
While many of us sensed the flattening of the world, The World Is Flat
Organizational Accountability – Increase Opportunities with Accountability
Every day, executives and managers are presented with opportunities to enhance their organization’s success. Frequently, these opportunities go unrecognized, unexplored, or unexploited because the organization is not prepared for them. Certainly, some opportunities are beyond an organization’s reach because of resource limitations. However, ensuring the organization possesses key attributes will better enable it to take advantage of those opportunities for which it has the resources and that are consistent and aligned with its mission. These attributes include:[wcm_restrict plans=”53529, 25542, 25653″]
- broad knowledge and skills base
- questioning attitude
- trusting environment
- willingness to rethink previous decisions and pursue new directions
- willingness to act
- drive to continuously improve
How do executives and managers build these attributes into an organization? The answer is accountability.
As previously discussed in Resource Management Best Practice 1 – Attract the Best with Accountability, the more accountable the organization the greater its ability to attract and retain highly knowledgeable and skilled workers. These individuals strive for continuous improvement because it is in their nature and is rewarded by the organization. Subsequently, more accountable organizations tend to possess a workforce having a broader, deeper knowledge and skills base, an improvement focused questioning attitude, and a willingness to act to fully realize the benefits associated with those identified improvement opportunities.
By definition, an accountable organization will consequentially act to best achieve its mission. As this implies, members of the organization continually seek performance improvement and new alternatives to more effectively and efficiently realize the organization’s goals even when this requires reconsidering and changing past decisions. Executives, managers, and individual contributors all recognize that people and the business environment evolve over time. Because those within the accountable organization act in the best interest of the organization and demonstrate superior performance, members of the accountable organization have a higher trust for one another thereby making it safe to rethink a previous direction. In the accountable organization, it is worse to fail to try than to try and fail within the boundaries of established protocols.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”53529, 25542, 25653″]
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About the Author
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
Strategic Planning Whitepaper Introduction – Analysis
StrategyDriven contributors are pleased to introduce the strategic planning whitepaper: Analysis. This whitepaper outlines and describes the major steps taken to assess the organization’s internal performance and external environment in support of long range activity planning.
Strategic analysis is a critical component of the strategic planning process. An integral part of a company’s evaluation and control program, it provides executives and managers with a comprehensive assessment of the organization’s capabilities and market factors; revealing growth opportunities and vulnerabilities. Armed with this information, managers can more effectively chose from among today’s strategic alternatives to create the greatest future reward potential.
Strategic Analysis Best Practice 3 – Identify the Hidden Drivers (Continued)
Simply put, people tend to behave in the manner for which they receive reinforcement. There often exists both documented and undocumented performance drivers that exert unintended pressure on individuals to act in ways counter to achieving the organization’s mission goals. As a continuation of Strategic Analysis Best Practice 3 – Identify the Hidden Drivers, this article expounds on several common hidden performance drivers and how they may adversely impact mission achievement.[wcm_restrict plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″]
Documented Drivers
- Compensation and Incentive Plans: By design, compensation and incentive plans reward individuals for specific behaviors. If the behaviors specified and rewarded are not aligned to the organization’s goals, it is likely the individual will behave in a manner that diminishes mission achievement. The impact of misaligned compensation and incentive rewards is more significant at higher levels of the organization because of the greater influence and span of control these individuals possess.
- Incentive Plan Time Frames: In the case of executive incentives, payouts often occur at some future time in order to promote increased accountability for sustained organizational performance. However, these time frames may limit the duration of projects executives will endorse. The elevated risk associated with long-term projects represents a near-term risk to the executive incentive payout in order to realize a long-range gain for which the executive is not incentivized.
- Workgroup Performance Measures: Performance measures provide periodic, public reinforcement; driving individuals to behave in a manner that results in a positive measurement outcome. Like compensation and incentive plans, if workgroup performance measures are not aligned with higher level and mission goals they will tend to drive behavior in a manner that diminishes mission achievement.
- Policies, Procedures, and Standards: People also behave in the manner which they are specifically directed, such as by policies, procedures, and standards. On occasion, these documents become misaligned with the organization’s goals through a series of revisions in response to various events. When this occurs, performance unintentionally deviates from that which most directly supports mission accomplishment.
Undocumented Drivers
- Undocumented Reasons for the Organization’s Founding: Beyond the organization’s mission statement, the reason for the organization’s creation is usually understood and acted upon by the Board of Directors and/or a small select group of the senior leadership team. Rooted in the organization’s history, this undocumented purpose guides decision-making at the top of the organization even when apparently counter to the stated mission. When this occurs, not only is the mission’s achievement diminished by the direction set but there exists a risk of creating conflicting priorities for managers and individual contributors further limiting personnel effectiveness.
- Organizational Legacy: Organizations with a history rich in tradition and heroes may attempt to live up to or remain faithful to the legacy. Holding on to these past methodologies and philosophies may reduce the organization’s efficiency in achieving its goals in today’s rapidly changing, technologically driven marketplace.
- Success Driven Complacency: Organizations experiencing long periods of continuous success may over time question the need to seek improvements or change; believing that they represent the industry benchmark or standard. Today’s highly competitive marketplace often leaves those who rest on their laurels struggling to remain viable.
- Personal Relationships (or the lack thereof): People tend to identify and form relationships with those they perceive are like themselves. This may result in the endorsement of the actions and recommendations of one individual over another for relationship reasons rather than as a result of an objective assessment. On occasion, the relationship-based selection will result in the lower value option being pursued.
- Defer to Perceived Important Groups or Individuals: Whether real or not, some groups and/or individuals are often perceived as being critically important to the organization. Abdication of decision-making to these individuals, especially on topics outside of their area of responsibility or knowledge and experience base, can result missed opportunities or increased adverse impacts. (See Decision-Making Best Practice 4 – Identify the Target.)
- Personal Agendas: Hidden personal agendas often seek to enhance one’s prestige and influence or protect one’s position and expand one’s span of control regardless of the overall organizational impact. Ego-driven power struggles of this nature can irreparably damage an organization and often result in missed opportunities because of the roadblocks erected by those who don’t stand to significantly benefit from taking the action.
- Unspoken Values: Valuing certain behaviors or personnel characteristics may personally benefit a majority of organization members. Subsequently, these behaviors and personnel characteristics become part of the corporate value system even if these values are socially unacceptable and counter to optimal mission achievement.
Remember, hidden drivers are not necessarily detrimental to the organization’s performance. It is important, however, that they are understood and assessed to ensure business planning and execution efforts are not diminished or undermined by these influencers of behavior.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”25541, 25541, 25653″]
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About the Author
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.