Time Management Expert, Event Speaker: Mark Lamendola

Productivity Case Histories | Productivity improvement articles | Time Tips Articles
 

Productivity Knowledge Base: Case Histories

Case #0001: Productivity isn't always a matter of doing the job for less than the bid requires.

Brad Johnson had been a project manager with Bergeron Electric for 21 years. The company performed a wide range of services, but most of its work involved retrofits and upgrades in industrial plants.

Brad took on a job that involved revamping an entire process line. This line used several operator control stations. Each station consisted of a box with pushbuttons and panel switches. Brad had tried to talk the customer into a central PLC-based system, but the customer wanted the switches and buttons.

The wiring was old, and much of the insulation was crumbled. The stations themselves were corroded, dented, pitted, or otherwise cosmetically defective. Though most of them had very similar functions, all of them were laid out differently.

Brad talked to the customer about standardizing the stations to one particular design. "No, I don't want to pay for a redesign. Just rewire the ones I have." Brad showed the customer the condition of the existing units, and explained that costs involved in rewiring. Then, Brad suggested the following:

  • Bergeron would create a standard face for all the control stations, reducing operator confusion and mistakes that had been plaguing the customer.
  • Bergeron would assemble these in their own shop, eliminating field fabrication time downtime at the customer's site.
  • All of these stations would plug into standard DIN connectors, which would be wired to terminal strips.
  • The customer would need some downtime to allow for running existing wiring into the new wiring interface. But, that would save time for future maintenance.

This increased productivity really didn't save Bergeron any money. It changed the scope of the job, and changed their price accordingly. Why do it? Here are some reasons:

  • Bergeron focused on solving the customer's problem, not on seeing how cheaply they could do the work.
  • The standardized approach made for a much nicer-looking installation.
  • The combination of pre-fab, standardization, and other factors nearly eliminated any chance of a callback. The originally suggested project would have been a service nightmare.

So, you see, productivity isn't always a matter of doing the job for less than the bid requires. It can be a matter of getting the bid to match the real needs of the customer.

Disclaimer: In many cases, the names have been changed for various reasons. In no case are we publishing any case that sheds a negative light on any real person or company. Any negative comments related to the name of an actual person or company are purely coincidental.

 

 

More thoughts on time management

The phrase "time management" is an unfortunate language quirk. You can't really manage time. It just is. You can't gain time, create time, or even lose time. Time is what it is, regardless of what we do. And, paradoxically, many common "time management" techniques and practices are timewasters because they divert limited resources (such as time) to the wrong things.

It would be better to say "time allocation" or "activity management" "time usage" or some other phraseology to indicate that it's not time itself you're managing but how you use the time that exists. But we'll use the common terminology here to avoid confusion.

Some things time management is not:

  • Being more efficient. Suppose you become very efficient at making buggy whips. Does this fact mean you are managing your time well?
  • Getting more done in a given amount of time. Getting more done of what? And to what degree of quality? If you rake the leaves on a lawn from one side to the other all day long, does that mean you are a good time manager?
  • Being able to juggle multiple priorities. Instead of juggling priorities, assign priorities. First tend to the urgent things, then the most important things.
  • Mastering multi-tasking. This concept conflicts with what we know about the human brain. If you buy into this self-defeating, time-wasting, quality-killing ideology, you might also be interested in practicing solo flight by flapping your arms frantically.
  • Working faster. No, this mode is how you make mistakes that you subsequently have to spend more time fixing.

Some things good time management involves:

  • Deciding what to do. This is trickier than it sounds. Which is why there are time management experts.
  • Deciding what not to do. This is even trickier than deciding what to do. Which is why there are time managers and why discipline is a huge, huge factor in accomplishing this.
  • Deciding what to do when, and in what order. In essence, prioritization.
  • Determining the scope, goals, and metrics for each activity you undertake. In this area, we the find most room for improvement. Precision here allows you to avoid waste on the one hand, and falling short on the other.
  • Planning out the work, task, project, or activity such that you determine the necessary steps to quality completion. That is, what must you do to meet the intended goal and quality metrics?
  • Identifying unnecessary steps. Get this right, and you can cut your wasted hours significantly.
  • Figuring out what resources to use. Not all resources applicable to a task are equal. Picking the right tool for the job saves time, improves quality, and makes life less stressful.

We've highlighted only some of the factors involved in good time management. We actually teach extreme time management, which is a methodology that allows you to make effective use of your time almost second nature. You don't need a complicated system. Our system puts many of the variables on autopilot, so you have more time to do what you need to do. Our system goes way beyond most other systems in results, yet is far simpler.

Contact us for a presentation to your organization: comments @ mindconnection.com (remove the spaces after pasting into your e-mail client's "to" box.