Changing processes and procedures

"I can not work - I have a procedure" ...

This article is not about testing, but rather not about testing at all, but rather about the organization of any work in principle. It is no secret that during the development of any project in the project team there are (sometimes formed arbitrarily, but more often imposed from above) some “ procedures ” are rules for creating reports on work, writing comments in code, documentation, creating descriptions of setting up production systems, and installations. products ( yes, not all installations are intuitive. If you have not encountered such products, for which installation you need to read the docks - consider you lucky ). In addition to direct positive effects , any “procedures” also have a negative side effect - absorption of time that could be spent on other tasks. Actually the purpose of this article is to estimate the time that the project team *** and loses to perform such "procedures" and some conclusions that follow from this.

1. Missed time ...

So, suppose we have a team of N people. Everyone has a certain average number of procedures k , which he performs daily himself (reports on work, comments in the code) and a certain number of procedures l , which he performs collectively and weekly (meetings with someone ***, all sorts of reviews, etc. .). He spends t time per day on daily procedures, and T * N time on weekly days (he needs to interact with each participant). If everyone interacts with everyone, then this is T * ((N-1)!) , But such interaction at rallies and other group procedures is rare (it takes too much time), so we’ll dwell on the evaluation of T * N. Total, in a week the team spends k * 5 * N * t time on individual procedures and l * T * N * N on collective ones. And in a month it will be (k * 5 * N * t + l * T * N * N) * 4 (a rough estimate, but then it is also a “grade”) or (k * 5 * t + l * T * N ) * N * 4 . Those. in a team of up to 5 people, the dependence is rather linear, and 5 or more is quadratic (this is about the effective size of groups). A simple example of an example: 5 people, 2 weekly meetings for 12 minutes per person, and 0.5 hours daily for reports. We get (0.5 * 5 * 1 + 0.2 * 2 * 5) * 5 * 4 = 90 hours. Not bad, huh? But this is only the most necessary ... for reference, the average number of hours worked by an employee per month = 168 . Those. in a team of 5 people, 0.5 people are constantly busy with “procedures” instead of work.

Do you want to pay more attention to what this part does?

2. I had so many great ideas ...

Whoever didn’t hear from the head of something like: "Let us in your team do this little report every day (posting the results of the work on the ball, supporting the document - underline the necessary) - this will take you only 5 minutes," rather I immediately started working as a boss and says this to the employees myself :) Let's imagine these “ +5 minutes ”. Suppose that the procedure is new (a rationally thought out change, as a rule, does not require additional time) - most likely it will take not 5 and 10-15 minutes (we use 15 for evaluation). And per month will add 0.25 * 5 * 20 = 25 hours. It seems not much - but already 6 such “procedures” are +1 continuously “procedural” employee.

Option number 2: "We need daily team rallies!". those. add 3 more meetings per week - 3 * 4 * 0.2 * 5 * 5 = 60 and oppa ... one person out of 5 completely "proceduses" ... and in this variant the dependence on the number of people in the team is quadratic ( !), because you need more time for a rally to hear everyone (and make a decision), but on the other hand, more people take part in meetings. In a team of 10 people it would be 3 * 4 * 0.2 * 10 * 10 = 240 hours .

3. And how is it right?

Actually, I do not want to say that "procedures" are bad and need to be disposed of. This is not true. Moreover, I think that “procedures” are simply necessary. Without them, the project will not be managed ! But it is better when there is a need to get a new document, report, etc. "turn on the brain" and optimize existing "procedures", rather than add new ones. What is better?

• The change usually affects an already existing procedure, which means that employees are less likely to forget, confuse, etc.
• It will not be necessary or it will take less extra time to execute (sometimes, time will be freed if you decide that some procedure is no longer needed).
• The list of "procedures" will always be relevant - it’s clear what the *** is doing.

Naturally, there is no single "correct" recipe for everyone. There are only some rough estimates of the time spent on routine tasks that are not directly related to the production of the final product or service. And it is always useful to present the "reverse side of the coin".