The Cost of Mental Rework. Rework is not limited to parts, assemblies, or equipment, or to any other manifestation of technology. You may question the issue regarding mental rework. Unfortunately mental rework in this age of the knowledge worker has taken on new dimensions. Months of work may be relegated to the trash bin because of a lack of communication. Project proposals may be reworked many times because of a lack of discipline in defining the requirements. Reports may be rewritten because of a lack of writing skills. Those legal documents may confuse rather than enlighten so are reworked. Lack of timely decisions may involve reworking many documents. All mental work involves thinking, but thinking requires some form of disciplined process in order to limit the mental rework. There is no measurement that captures the loss due to mental rework. But being cognizant of the mental rework and looking at how many times documents that derive from rethinking are changed do provide some measures on which to take corrective action.
Questions: Do you track the cost of mental rework in your department? Do you have a defined program to reduce the mental rework? Has the mental rework become a source of frustration and lowering of motivation? Have you as a manager been the source of the rework because of undefined expectations and delayed decisions?
Organizational Infrastructure. While a department may attempt to interject changes into the organization’s operations it may be limited by the lack of a supporting infrastructure. The organization’s infrastructure includes purposes, objectives, strategies, organizational structure, guiding principles, policies and practices, management attitudes, management expertise, support for innovation, acceptance of risk, communication, and social responsibility. If the organization’s purposes, objectives, and strategies are not clearly defined and communicated, a department may be wasting resources. You need to consider purposes, objectives, and strategies (POS) as a unity. Independently they have little meaning. In pursuing a program that may not be consistent or sanctioned by the organization’s POS, a department may be diverting resources that might be used in some other program for a greater organizational benefit. This doesn’t mean that the department should not pursue such a particular program, but that the other elements of the infrastructure must support such actions.
Questions: How do you rate your organization’s infrastructure? Based on the disciplines and purposes of your department, how do you rate your department’s infrastructure? Does it support the department’s members?
Use of Technologies. In recent years our workplaces have been inundated with all types of technological marvels to improve productivity. Some have been successful while others never produced the desired results. Some of this technology could be replaced by pencil and paper. Our ability to store vast amounts of information electronically allows us to develop archives that often contain much useless information and only creates the need for more investment in technology. Think of the hours sometimes wasted by our inability to speak to a person directly, instead of going through endless automatic switchboard choices only to reach the wrong person or be disconnected. Not a very productive way to provide customer service. I’m not suggesting the elimination of technology to improve performance, but I am suggesting that implementing new technologies be based on financial payback just like any other investment.
Questions: Are investments in workplace technologies governed by financial payback? Are those payback estimates real or imaginary? How do you monitor the payback benefits? Are the new technologies just automating old processes or eliminating many of the process steps? Have you turned those cubicles into printing plants instead of selecting what goes electronic and what goes in print?
Systems Approach. Systems can be defined in many different ways but very simply, a system involves the interaction of two or more people, objects, or entities in pursuit of an objective. The system satisfies certain defined conditions. Why the systems approach? Very few activities can be accomplished by a single discipline or by a single individual. The objectives of one unit affect the performance of other units. So the impact of meeting a particular objective in a unit must take into account its impact on other units.
Questions: Does your unit use the systems approach? Does your unit understand the principles of using the systems approach? If you use the systems approach, have you quantified the benefits? If you do not use the systems approach, have you calculated the added costs to your unit?