Tag: Project Management

I was pretty harsh on Cal Newport in a recent post (and rightly so). I do however generally agree with him that our workday is largely taken up with meaningless or at best, inefficient activity.

I’m having a big week at work this week, and I can feel how much energy I’ve spent between Monday morning and now (Thursday afternoon). Not all of this energy has been productive though, and I was just lamenting that if a had disappeared into ether over the weekends our projects would have been more or less where they are today. Meetings would have happened without me, Purchase orders would have been approved. Maybe things wouldn’t have been as smooth, but someone would have picked up the slack.

Until recently, the best indication of productivity was time spent at the desk. We came to work at a set time and finished when everyone else did. Thanks to advances in technology we can now effectively fill every waking moment with activity if we so choose. A common challenge for me when managing people is that they get sucked down the rabbit hole, completing task after task until they are burnt out. They may be picking up the slack for a absent colleague (ethered or otherwise) or trying to get ahead. I generally provide council around the following principle: ‘What is the best 40 hours a week you can give the company’.

One might assume if they take my advice the company, project or their peers will suffer as the load just gets transferred, however this is rarely the case. In fact usually the opposite happens, as the focus on quality over quantity increases overall efficiency. The basis for this advice is the following:

1. The company almost pays for your time. The system has thrived by not stopping you if you go over. If you are in a business that praises you but does not reward you for extra effort, that’s on you
2. The more you work, the less efficient you are. Hours 55-60 probably aren’t netting you as much as you think.
3. By striving for the best 40 you can do, you should still get done the things that make you good at your job. Rewards will follow. You’ll find some tasks that someone may be able to do much faster than you or a meeting you can cancel.
4. As a good friend of mine once said ‘people at 110% capacity bitch about it, people at 130% capacity innovate’. Put some energy into creating a template or writing a script to do that repetitive task, better yet, get someone else to help you with that. You might do 70 hours that week, but it will help you get to 40.
5. You likely signed a contract for 40 hours. You have made an initial commitment to the job (psychological contract). If you are giving more, you’ll likely resent it and do a worse job overall. If you have a boss who doesn’t mind if you hate your job, you should find a new boss.

This might seem specific to employees in large companies, but the same principle can be applied to the small business owner or the freelance creative. Determine how much time you are willing to commit first, then determine how best to spend it. If you find yourself spending more, how much quality are you getting for that quantity?

The CFO at my work likes to explain this Matrix to young Project Managers, to the point where it has been named ‘The Spong Matrix’. Key message is that Bad News Early is equivalent to Good News Late.

Typically this will come out when some bright spark has tripped over a few million upside in the last week of quarter and they are taking a victory lap. The problem is, that if you didn’t forecast it, you either intentionally hid it or you just got lucky. If you got lucky, who’s to say you won’t be unlucky next time?

The deeper point is that ‘Demonstration of Control’ and predictability more important than great results. You can’t guarantee great results year on year. If you don’t miss your targets occasionally the bar isn’t high enough. The way to survive the misses is to let people know early and give them the confidence that you are in control of your project. And if you do get lucky, bank it until next month 🙂