THE MAGIC WAND EXPERIMENT
Besides telling stories, another tool we use in TameFlow to explore and understand our MENTAL MODELS are "Gedankenexperiments," that is, "thought experiments."
We will look at such an experiment now, the Magic Wand Experiment.
The experiments starts with this question:
If I gave you a magic wand that could reduce by 20% anything you point it at, how would you use it?
Most business would have no doubt: let's make things happen faster.
Which means they would aim the wand at reducing TIME by 20%.
Let's make some considerations.
FIRST! Most businesses are not aware of the distinction between TOUCH TIME and WAIT TIME.
When they think about "making things happen faster," that invariably means "work harder."
So, more specifically, they would aim the wand at TOUCH TIME.
It makes sense after all.
In the hospital metaphor: if we want to "deliver" more healthy patients, the doctors must "TOUCH" them faster - do their work in less time.
The "resources" have to become more "efficient."
This is the essence of the RESOURCE EFFICIENCY paradigm.
Because of this ruling view - the RESOURCE EFFICIENCY, "work harder," paradigm - and the fact that there is no awareness or consideration about the distinction between TOUCH and WAIT TIME, any improvement effort will be aimed at TOUCH TIME REDUCTION.
You must "work harder!"
SECOND! Another obvious effect of improving on TOUCH TIME is it implies sustaining costs, changes and risk of failure.
Think about it.
The doctors must operate "faster!"
They must change the way of working; hire more nurses; buy better equipment.
And risk failing!
If we reduce WAIT TIME without changing TOUCH TIME, then there are no material changes to perform.
The doctors would still be operating as before.
No additional nurses need to be hired or trained.
No further equipment is needed.
And without change, risk of failure is gone!
THIRD! If we reduce WAIT TIME, we are effectively pursuing what is known as FLOW EFFICIENCY.
It can be thought of as "deliver sooner" in contrast to "work harder" of RESOURCE EFFICIENCY.
It can be measured as the ratio between the sum of all TOUCH TIMES over the TOTAL TIME.
Strikingly, FLOW EFFICIENCY is extremely low in the context of knowledge-work.
Unless it has been deliberately addressed, it will typically fall between the 3-7% range.
Let's say 5% for arguments sake.
What does it mean?
95% of the time the "patient" will be waiting!
Now, with these three factors in mind...
1. We are aware of WAIT TIME
2. If we improve WAIT TIME, there are no costs, changes or risk
3. Flow efficiency is low, like 5%
... let's ask the experiment question again.
Where do we aim the wand at?
WAIT TIME or TOUCH TIME?
The answer is obvious.
It makes much more sense to aim at WAIT TIME.
But how much better is it, really?
If we calculate how much more gets done, we see the difference: a 1% improvement (via TOUCH TIME) vs a 23% improvement (via WAIT TIME).
Surprised?
It's even worse!
That 1% will probably be eroded by the effort to improve on TOUCH TIME.
It will be eroded by the costs and changes, and it will most likely fail.
And because it fails, it will cause another chase of the next "improvement initiative," effectively triggering a vicious circle!
But is yet even more worse!
Because if the TOUCH TIME improves by 20%, operations are patting themselves on their back, celebrating how good they are!
But business will NOT see any financial improvement.
A 1% eroded by the cost and risk of change.
Business will scratch their heads, and wonder why they don't see results
And they will kick off another "improvement initiative," notwithstanding the "success!"
So the change cycle starts over even so, making everyone frustrated yet again.
FLOW EFFICIENCY improvements, on the other hand, would yield a +23% of real performance gains, which likely would be outstandingly reflected in the business results.
So with this thought experiment, there is no doubt.
FLOW EFFICIENCY trumps RESOURCE EFFICIENCY.
Did you like this reasoning about FLOW EFFICIENCY and its effect on improvement and business results?
You can read more about such ideas in my book: The Book of TameFlow!
You can find it here:
leanpub.com/tameflow
Steve Tendon
@tendon
I help executives achieve superior financial, operational, organizational and human performance by adopting the power of Flow@Scale™.
