Ah..Bureaucracy

Question: How many people does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: At least 3.

I had a humorous experience yesterday that I want to share.  It has no direct relationship with software development, but if you ever dealt with a business processes that seemed overly bureaucratic, you can laugh with me.

As always, I have omitted details to protect the innocent and keep the post short.

I was waiting for a friend at a place of business.  This business is well established having several offices throughout the city.  A serviceman walked in and went up to the front desk.

Serviceman: "I am here to replace 2 burned out florescent light bulbs in the hallway."

Receptionist: "Sure, go ahead."

Serviceman: "Do you have the service approval?"

Receptionist: "The what?"

Serviceman: "The approval.  I need approval before I can replace the bulbs."

Receptionist: "I never heard of that before."

Serviceman: "You need to contact the service department at the home office to get the approval." (FYI: the ‘home office’ is in another city)

Receptionist: "Ok.  I need to look up the phone number."

(jump ahead a minute)

Receptionist: "I could not find the number, but I did find this memo for the approval."

Serviceman:  "That is it.  I will go and change them now."

(jump ahead another minute)

Serviceman: "All done."

Receptionist: "Bye."

(Total Time = 5 minutes)

So let’s crunch some numbers.  One serviceman to replace the bulbs, plus one receptionist to present the approval, plus (at least) one person to draft and send the approval, equals 3 people to complete a one minute task to replace a couple light bulbs (note: I am focusing on what it takes to get them fixed, which is why I did not include one person to request the service department replace the bulbs).

Would it not make more sense to send the serviceman the approval with the service request?  This way the receptionist could deal with the customers that were lining up behind the serviceman.  Then again, why bother drafting an approval form for such a trivial task?  Oh well, I am sure it looks good on paper.

Making the most of a Commute

A little time well spent, adds up.

My commute to and from work is very short.  It’s about 30 minutes round trip.  15 minutes to get to work, and 15 to get home.  It is nothing compared to some who spend hours getting to and from work, but I do get annoyed when is takes me five minutes longer.  I guess it is because I know how long it typically takes.  Though as short as my commute is, I find it boring & a waste of time.

Sometimes there is something interesting on the radio, but more often than not there is little which catches my interest.  I think I have burned & listened to every conceivable combination of my CD library.  I even started borrowing my wife’s CD’s which is scary because we do not have the same tastes in music.  Many times I felt there was a better way to fill the time.

Recently I found a happy medium; one that satisfies my boredom & allows me to enjoy the commute.  I started listening to podcasts on my iPod.  I have listened to podcasts before as they caught my interest, but I have never subscribed to them, nor listen to them with regularity.  Now I subscribe to several.  iTunes automatically downloads the latest podcasts to my iPod, so all I have to do is plug-in the earphones and drive away.  Now I am satisfied that my commute is more productive.

There are a great variety of podcasts out there.  Here are some of the ones I currently subscribe to:

dotNet Rocks!

Hansel Minutes

Channel9

Finding the Time

I am no expert on time management. It is a subject that I am trying to personally improve. However, I have utilized a few techniques that have benefited me in organizing and managing my time.

I (as I’m sure everyone in existence) has said at one time or another: "I don’t have the time to…", or "I wish I had more time to…". It is a difficult subject because the problem is only relevant to the individual saying it. Everyone’s situation is slightly different, and only that individual can tackle the problem.

Some people have told me that I could improve my time management skills. This statement always perplexed me. For years, I have kept up-to-date backlogs of issues or deliverables. I have tracked my time for years to the point that I know where I am spending most of my time & when. I even know which day of the week I am most productive on.

Sometimes tasks would be delayed due to higher priority items I had to tackle. Nevertheless, given enough ‘time’ I would always deliver. Therefore, when someone tells me that I was not a good manager of my time, I always wondered how he or she could make that statement without knowing everything I had to manage on a daily basis.

Then it occurred to me, it was not really a comment about how I managed my time, it was a comment about how my time affected them.

Now this may be stating the obvious to some people, but sometimes framing a problem with different wording reveals new insights about that problem. That is what happened here.

Like any software engineer, I am sometimes tasked with many activities like:

– Research a technology
– Write a specification
– Correct a defect

All of these activities have an input and an output. In the case of ‘researching a technology’, the input may be a criteria for evaluating the technology. The output may be a written document evaluating the technology against the criteria. If my inputs to a task were not available, then I could be delayed in starting that task. The same would go for my outputs. If my output were delayed, the person who is waiting on it would be delayed to.

One issue (I find) is when you have many outputs for many people (i.e. juggling). It may be easy to plan if ‘output 1’ needs to be done on Monday, and ‘output 2’ needs to be done on Friday. However, I find this is rarely the case for me because people ask me when it will be done. Before I would give them a date and they walk away happy. Then the task takes longer then expected & I would deliver past the date I provided. Maybe by only a day or two, but late still. Which leads in to my next point, human perception.

Humans, I believe, really do not pay much attention to things that are working well on a day-by-day basis; It is the problems that get us involved. If something is delivered on time, then there may be a small recognition of its passing. If however something is later then expected, then sometimes people get involved to determine ‘why’. This reaction, which is understandable & necessary, is what drives meetings, 1-on-1’s, emails, & phone calls. They cost everyone time, so everyone notices.

In an effort to improve, I read a number of online articles on time & people management. Disappointingly there was not much information for a technical expert (that I found), let alone a software engineer. After reading these articles, I outlined a few techniques to help me address the issues I stated previously. They have worked well for me. That is why I want to share them.

1. Don’t give an ‘on-the-spot’ answer

When someone asks you when something will be completed, tell that person you will look at it & then get back to him/her. This is not to avoid the issue. I know everyone likes to give answers when they feel they know them. The problem with this is that you may be wrong, so why not take a little extra time to validate your answer, or at least to refine your response. Say something like:

"I don’t know but I’ll look in to it and get back to you by 2pm"

– or –

"I’m not sure. I will have to review my schedule & task list before I can answer that. I’ll let you know in a couple hours"

* Always give a time when you will provide the answer s/he needs. This gives them that ‘date’ they were looking for & something to look forward to. Make sure you give yourself enough time to stick to the deadline. Do not say ‘in 10 minutes’ when you have to leave work in 10 minutes.

2. If it is important, schedule it

If you need to review a document, call someone, or follow-up on an email, schedule time in Outlook Calendar (or whatever public calendar you use). The point is that others have to see that you are unavailable for that time. This reserves time in the day to address that task. This does not stop others from booking meetings during the same time, but they are more likely to look for a different time slot if they know you are unavailable in the time slot they are looking at.

If the whole team does this, then this forces a conversation between team members to reserve time for meetings (like ‘Meeting Monday’). Same philosophy, just at a team level rather then individual.

2) ABC’s / 123’s

When I used to plan priorities, I would rank them "low, medium, or high". This gave me some information about what tasks to tackle first, but I found it was a very ‘course grained’ technique because it did not provide me with the insight I needed to properly prioritize.

Now I use what is called "ABC’s / 123’s". Here is how it works:

a) Make a listing or all your tasks in no particular order.
b) Start from the top of the list and mark each task with one of the following letters:

A – this task must be delivered as soon as possible

B – this task can be delivered in 1 or 2 days

C – this task does not have any time limitation

e.g.
A – Task One
C – Task Two
A – Task Three
B – Task Four
A – Task Five

c) For each task you labeled ‘A’, compare the first A with the second A. Add ‘1’ to the task that is more important. Then compare the first A with the third A. Keep going through the remaining A’s. When you finish, compare the second A with the third A. Keep going until you have compared all the A’s with each other.

e.g.
Compare: ‘Task One’ with ‘Task Three’
Mark: ‘Task One’ is more important so ‘Task One =1’
Compare: ‘Task One’ with ‘Task Five’
Mark: ‘Task One’ is more important so ‘Task One =2’
Compare: ‘Task Three’ with ‘Task Five’
Mark: ‘Task Five’ is more important so ‘Task Five=1’

d) Now you have a priority listing of those tasks that need to be completed ASAP. The tasks that have the higher number need to be completed first. Repeat for all B’s & C’s.

You should end up with something like this:

A:
Task One (first priority)
Task Five
Task Three (last priority)
B:
Task Four
C:
Task Two

What this listing does is give you insight in to where your time needs to be spent. In the example, ‘Task One’ is the first task I need to address.

If you have many of ‘A’ tasks, you may want to inform your manager or co-worker that you may be delayed in delivering if the task is at the bottom of the list. If they ask why, then you can show them the listing.

I hope that these techniques will help you better manage your time.