Many people believe that being more knowledgeable means that they are more productive in their work. Without a strategic process, these people spend their time grinding at the current task, . . .
barely understanding what is in front of them.
Cardinal Rule: Process Precedes Technology
Some people prefer using technology as the complete solution for everything. Realistically, technology is a narrow short cut that completes the objective. It rarely solves the long term problem. A good general strategy process is usually the answer. Where it specifically starts by understanding the goal and the objectives.
In most cases, most people work from ground up. Focusing on one task at a time without ever acknowledging what is ahead of them. They grind away their resources and time.
With the Compass AE process, the project implementers are able to collaboratively see the full Compass of their plan (Tangible Vision) regardless of their project culture, technology and distance.
Specifically, they are able to focus on completing their objectives while minding the goal. This feature positions the implementors in a strategic advantage.
Does your planning process allows your team to perform the above standards? If not, you need Compass AE.
If you are interested in learning more about Compass AE, please e-mail us at contactus [tat]collaboration360[dott] com. [ Replace [tat] with "@" and [dot] with "." ]
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The productivity paradox
By Brent Frei and Mark Mader, News.com
If there were a Productivity Hall of Fame, John Deere would definitely occupy a place of prominence.
The 19th century inventor introduced his cutting-edge steel plow with a polished and curved blade in 1837. In the process, he revolutionized agriculture. Tilling an acre of land with a spade required 96 hours and plowing an acre with a yoke of oxen and a crude wooden plow took 24 hours. Deere's steel plow reduced the time to five to eight hours.
Fred Smith would also be inducted into the Productivity Hall of Fame. On the night of April 17, 1973, the Yale-educated logistics master sent the first FedEx narrow-body Dassault Falcon jet roaring down the runway at the Memphis airport. From that moment on, packages were delivered more rapidly--absolutely, positively overnight.
Another sure-fire member of our pantheon of productivity would be Andy Grove, the co-founder and former CEO of Intel. Under Grove's leadership, Intel brought out a new generation of microchips that powered the first wave of PCs in the 1980s. Those PCs with Intel inside spelled the demise of typewriters and paper account ledgers, and set the stage for digital time-saving tools like e-mail.
Deere, Smith, and Grove each made it possible--and easier--for us to do more work faster.
That's the nature of productivity. And productivity is the lifeblood of a nation's economy. America's efficient assembly line culture, spurred by Henry Ford and General Motors' Alfred Sloan, certainly proved this in the 20th century.
Once the Model-Ts started rolling, America's labor productivity growth started surging, averaging about 2 percent each year. That growth rate helped double the U.S. standard of living every 35 years.
As the hyper-prosperous high-tech 1990s unfolded, Americans were living better than at any time in our history. Indeed, the Internet accelerated the U.S. productivity revolution, pushing annual labor productivity growth up to 2.5 percent between 1995 and 2000, and 2.8 percent between 2000 and 2004.
Productivity growth has slowed since 2004, however, and nobody is sure why.
Certainly, technology has done its job. In the wake of downsizing, budget cuts, re-engineering, and outsourcing, it has filled in the gaps at company after company. As a result, supply chains are efficient and lean, the financial services industry is automated, and manufacturing processes are flexible. Indeed, the average company in America now spends between $5,000 and $10,000 per knowledge worker on hardware and software designed to boost productivity.
One theory that may explain declining productivity growth has been advanced by McKinsey consultants, who believe that companies have finally cut the non-complex transactional positions that benefit from productivity-stimulating technology. All that's left are complicated and nuanced jobs requiring experience, expertise, judgment, interaction, and collaboration--or tacit knowledge. Increasing productivity for these employees, whose jobs can't be automated, has thus far proven to be a challenge for software developers.
Another way of explaining the decrease in productivity is to admit that much of the productivity-enhancing technology now in use hasn't made us more productive. According to Basex, a research firm focusing on the knowledge economy, interruptions from e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging, text messaging, and blogs eat up nearly 30 percent of each day; on an annualized basis, this represents a loss of 28 billion hours for the entire U.S. workforce, or a $588 billion cost to the American economy.
An equally sad truth is that even though we now have the technological ability to do faster work, we may not be doing better work. More problematic is the fact that we're generally not working easily or happily--in groups or on our own.
A 2006 research study conducted among sales and marketing teams at Intel indicated that 54 percent of those surveyed believed e-mail had a negative impact on their stress levels. And a number of other studies show that productivity-enhancing hardware and software has helped heighten distraction and discontinuity in the workplace at the expense of critical and creative thinking--as well as constructive collaboration.
This is a large and looming problem because, as McKinsey says, we are entering an interaction revolution that will require employees to truly and sensitively come together to achieve top- and bottom-line goals in a hyper-competitive global marketplace.
Automating the knowledge economy is essential to our nation's health. And when this technological turn of the wheel takes place it will almost certainly drive productivity growth back up--but in the right way that makes sense for well-meaning companies and the hard-working people within them.
©2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.http://news.zdnet.com/2010
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