This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Promises and Prescriptions Part 3 - Work Your Way Out of Rework -- Rework can add up to a significant portion of total project effort. It only makes sense that reducing rework will improve project performance. It's unrealistic to consider eliminating all changes or repealing Murphy's Law, so let's consider avoiding the things that we do to ourselves.
Get rid of task due dates. The only dates that count are those promised outside the project. Accept the fact that the work is going to take as long as the work takes, and that interim task due dates are distracting, artificial priorities. Without artificial priorities imposed by due dates for individual tasks, the ability to hand off quality output runs into one less obstacle.
Develop a clear understanding of the major interdependencies between tasks and maintain that understanding as the project progresses and changes. Understand the handoffs. Understand the resource dependencies. Don't obsess over understanding the details of different functional parts of the project if you're going to ignore the cross-linkages between those parts. As the project progresses and matures, make sure that new learning, new necessities, and new dependencies are added to that understanding. If a dependency diagram of your project looks like a set of long parallel chains of tasks, go back and look for where those lines really intersect.
Question assumptions about "necessary" handoffs between tasks. You may not need all of the assumed inputs, but separate what you can do with what you have, from what you cannot. Doing what you can in parallel will accelerate project progress. Doing what you think you can but really can't will yield rework and slow the project down.
The key to avoiding rework is in the combination of a living plan of dependencies, the elimination of any idea that an estimate is a commitment, and an environment that allows people to do their best work on the task at hand.
Sidebar - Another Problem with Task Due Dates -- In addition to being a source for rework, task due dates bring another insidious problem to the issue of keeping project promises. They are the source of Parkinson's Law: "Work expands to fill the time allowed."
The implication of finish (and start) dates in a schedule is that if they are met, the project is on track. If that's the case, then the time allowed runs the risk of being filled up with distractions, unnecessary tweaking and polishing of outputs, and other activities not associated with the task at hand.
Similarly, if the receivers of a task output equate due dates with start dates, they might not be there to pick up an early handoff. In either case, time that might be needed for some unforeseen problem down the road has been lost.
If you get rid of task due dates, and enable/enforce focus on the most important task, project quality, speed, and reliability will improve.
(Watch for the multi-tasking issue in the next installment. And by the way, yesterday, Hal Macomber picked on on this series, said some very complimentary things about it, and has started adding his two cents to the subject as well. And Hal's two cents are usually worth a lot more than that nominal amount. Check 'em out.)
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