Why Tracking Time is Important for Everyone

Why do people hate to report on the time they spend on various activities at work? There are many reasons knowledge workers revolt over tracking time. Some of the most common that I hear are:

* Tracking time is for people who bill for hourly work. I don't do that, so why does it matter?
* Tracking time is for part-time hourly employees. Don't even compare me to a part-time employee, its an insult. I'm a professional who is above that.
* Tracking time is an invasive and unproductive practice. In fact, if I had to track time on everything I do, I wouldn't get anything done.
* We don't want our culture to become distrustful and Orwellian. Tracking time sends a clear message that you don't trust people to work hard.

OK. Those are some compelling reasons. Not compelling enough to get me to stop writing this article though. I want to show that there is value to the front line in tracking time.

This value is manifest in three important ways: less overtime, fewer missed deadlines, and less organizational leakage - all of which lead to a stronger company which affects everyone employed by that company in a positive way.

Less Overtime & Fewer Missed Deadlines.
People are optimistic. They tend to want to do more in a shorter period of time than they are able to. They tend to underestimate obstacles and overestimate their own abilities. Sales people tend to over-forecast. Managers tend to over promise. Workers tend to underbid on work required. This leads to situations where people are working more hours than they should and are still not delivering everything that's been promised of them.

How do we begin to fix this problem? Just double all of your project estimates? Cut your expectations in half? Nice try. The executives are not going to let you do that. Their job is to push you. You start sandbagging estimates and they'll start doubling expectations. The result will be that you will still be the one stowing a sleeping bag under your desk.

The key to fixing this problem lies in understanding exactly how much effort is typically required for various activities or similar projects within the organization. A comparison of like activities needs to be made over time to validate whether or not estimates are accurate. The following questions need to be considered:

* Do we know how much time is being spent on projects, processes, and initiatives in the organization?
* Are there areas or activities where we consistently under estimate the time required?
* Are there people who regularly do a particular activity slower than others in the organization who do that same thing?
* Can we isolate activities from each other so that we can target problem areas and improve them?


These questions cannot be answered without good time tracking data associated directly with those activities.

You can't solve the problem of over-committing without knowing these answers. Likewise, you can't get these answers without good time tracking data. Therefore, it stands to reason that you cannot figure out how reduce overtime or missed deadlines without you (and everyone else on your team) contributing good time data.

Less Organizational Leakage.
Busy work is that work we do that does not add real value to the organization. It can take the form of ongoing work which could be done more efficiently. It can also take the form of work that ends up being a net drag on the organization.

Work can become a net drag if the cost associated with doing it is greater than the value it brings to the organization. Many organizations have areas of drag.

Why would a worker care about being a net drag on the organization? Wouldn't it be better to just 'be busy'? Ignorance is bliss. The difference is between being busy on a winning team or being busy on a losing team. If people are busy doing work that adds value to the organization, its analogous to putting money in the bank.

There are areas where this is not the case. These areas represent organizational leakage. They are areas where the value created by others evaporates. An organization with no leakage is bound to have significant value and growth. Some questions that could be asked in order to help find leakage are:

* What inefficiencies exist in current repetitive processes?
* What are the fully-loaded costs associated with various value-producing areas in the company?
* Are there areas in the company that have additional capacity?
* Are there areas in the company where we need to apply more resources to get even more positive value?
* Are there areas in the company whose resources would better be used in another activity?

Finding areas of efficiency/inefficiency is much more difficult than finding areas where effort is being applied. What we're searching for is a statement that says, "For every dollar we spend on this kind or work, we create X dollars of value". Hopefully that number is greater than 1. This question requires that we understand the value of work being done (a topic for another day), and the cost associated with that work. One component of the cost is directly related to time tracking data, or the cost of the effort associated with it.

In summary, I'd like to point out that tracking time is often a requisite for organizational improvement. Tracking time should not be seen as a necessary evil in your organization, but should be seen as an important data point to be used by the organization for more accurately estimating commitments and for reducing waste.