The rules so far:
This would be OK but for Rule 3 which states that: There is always more work than people.
This rule can be expressed in many ways:
- You never have enough time
- There is always more you could do
- You never have enough money
- Demand outstrips supply
- Or maybe just the observation that your boss is an idiot
How you express it depends on what kind of day you are having, but it always comes down to the same thing: there is always too much work.
It doesn’t matter how many people you have
There is never have enough time, people or money to do everything you want to do. If you think the solution to the problem is simply to hire more people you will always be flat-out disappointed.
As a wise old man once said to me “deal with it”.
Don’t rely on getting more people to solve your problem. Rely on understanding the work. Get organised, get creative, find another way.
Rule 3: There is always more work than people
Addendum to the rule:
Oddly the better you understand the work and the fewer staff you need to do it, the happier your boss will be to give you some more people. This is analogous to the fact that banks are always delighted to lend you money when you have plenty.
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Image by Alan O’Rourke
James,
Whoever can solve this dilemma will be rich, no doubt.
Annette :-)
James,
Isn’t the trick here to understand what work to prioritise?
Adrian
Hello James,
I find myself in total agreement with you when you say that there is always more work than people. It is not that this is the way that the world is – like the way the Sun is or Jupiter is. We are talking about a human realm and it is the way that it is because the folks that run the system want it this way: it promises lower employment costs and higher profits.
Yes, there is always more work than people. Which is why anything that is not immediately visible tends not to get done. Take the folks that make you your coffee. The coffee machines need to be cleaned in a certain manner at certain intervals, and to a certain quality. Guess what happens? More work than people to do the work. So the work that gets done is the work of serving customers. The work that does not get done is the work of cleaning the machine. Impact: hygiene impact (invisible) on the coffee served to the customer. And periodic breakdowns in the coffee making machines. Take systems implementation projects. What does not get done? Learning of what worked and what did not work. And how we would do things differently, or the sharing of deliverable, or a new way of doing things that was invented on a particular project. Why? Who has the time for that?
So if we are to improve effectiveness and arguably efficiency in the broader sense then we either to increase the number of people. Or we need to find smarter ways of doing the work. So who is going to find smarter ways of doing the work if all the people are too busy doing their day job of doing the work?
All the best,
maz