Sunday, September 03, 2006
PWIP: HOW TO EFFICIENTLY MOVE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL WORK PRODUCT INVENTORY (WORKLOAD) TO CLOSURE
I call work product an actual or potential action for which incept has been recognized and which requires work (sequence of behavior routines) to reach closure (DONE vs. still in the process of getting it done, or thinking about getting it done.)
I call work product inventory the sum of all my current and potential action commitments at my work situs. (In my case, for purposes of this essay, the office,or maybe even my garden, or my household finances.)
To which I add stasis, which I define as the sum of the end of the day remaining inventory, by which I will judge my next day's work as taking me below stasis (successful incremental reduction of workload) or above stasis (failure to reduce workload).
Stasis is never zero work product inventory. Work in Process (in lean, WIP) is always a number bigger than zero. Stasis is a relative sum. I can call it "Relative Zero", or zero for all practical purposes, given the fact that I am completely and utterly overloaded with work. In manufacturing, Relative Zero is sometimes achieved, creatively, not on the plant floor, but in pre-production parts inventory control, by achieving JIT (just in time inventory), and eliminating warehouse costs, in addition to other lean re-organizations of processes on the plant floor itself involved in moving a product from sale (nothingness) through the production maze (becoming and being) to delivery (back to nothingness and stasis).
Let me introduce the term PWIP, which lean consultants call PaperWork in Process. Since, I employ lean techniques involving The MasterList tool at both the personal and professional level, and since The MasterList is also employed by artisans and other career non-office workers, I define PWIP as Personal or Professional Work In Process.
So, the trick at a personal or professional (service) level handling a complex spectrum of tasks that are building up involving phone, email, computer screen, and paper document inventory (or, even if you are involved with more physical inventory at the personal level, like managing artistic materials, multiple art objects, or yard work, or are managing a small business) all directed to a physical or abstract finished product that may or may not be an object, or could simply be an objective or series of objectives, is how to achieve a balanced PWIP. With The MasterList this can be done in ways that are similar to what has been achieved in the manufacturing process with JIT, and by applying the Toyota Way, and other lean manufacturing techniques.
The answer for the career professional or dedicated personal task-minder, applying our tool, The MasterList, is: Inner Lean.
Inner Lean is the development of personal analytical, organizational, and process methodologies that keep PWIP in balance, with the goal of bringing it down, or allowing more PWIP to be added without creating overload. This requires focus on incept recognition, process particulars, and closure parameters.
So, what do we do in practice to accomplish Inner Lean? Well, to harp on our favorite tool, we utilize a combination of personal assessment techniques combined with The MasterList to manage and control PWIP to get it done. Like JIT, The MasterList, is a creative tool, that embodies a process, for handling aspects of professional and personal work in process, as if it was parts inventory.
Let's start with Incept Recognition and assess why if closure can never be immediate, we need a tool like The MasterList to inventory PWIP, to wait its turn in the process of competing tasks or projects in process, so that we can get closure.
A call comes in. Mail comes in. An assignment comes in. Email comes in. A project, task, or response task, has been incepted. Since we can only put one pant leg on in the instant, chances are that having recognized the incept of a potential action, or work task, we can do little more than add it to the PWIP load, without getting to immediate closure. The only alternative is stopping work on whatever PWIP task we had benched before us at the prior moment. It's a deadening choice either way. We either stop one thing, or fail to start the other.
Here's where The MasterList comes in. If we have an associated project, we can place the potential task in that project with referents for time, person, and associated data and links, as well as relating it to companion tasks for the same projects for ourselves and others. And, by combing the task lists and using our time reallocation tools (time-blaster) we can re-sequence the priority and timing of the entire project in seconds. Then, the system will automatically remind us through the My Day list, when it is "just in time" to get back to the incepted task and actually work it, or decide in that future instant to put it off further based on relative priority.
So, that brings us to the total inventory of PWIP. Since The MasterList lists all personal and/or professional work in progress chronologically, it can be compared at any moment with all other chronological "potentials", so that accurate priority decisions can be made on an objective basis, without giving in to subjective external pressures.
Finally, with The MasterList, closure is accelerated on priority projects, or projects and sub-tasks can be more easily re-prioritized because there is continual refreshment of the overall list of incepted actions still in progress, with constant re-prioritization, easily accomplished in seconds per list, not just seconds per task. This yields WIP-slices that are meaningful for today vs. all PWIP whether prioritized or not.
So, to sum up, if you focus on inner lean; and use the routine of working incept actions through The MasterList to allow continuous refreshment of PWIP overview towards closure, you are more likely to see and choose a better mix of priorities in any instant for exact handling of the best one for the moment. This will result in more efficient closure of work product.
I call work product an actual or potential action for which incept has been recognized and which requires work (sequence of behavior routines) to reach closure (DONE vs. still in the process of getting it done, or thinking about getting it done.)
I call work product inventory the sum of all my current and potential action commitments at my work situs. (In my case, for purposes of this essay, the office,or maybe even my garden, or my household finances.)
To which I add stasis, which I define as the sum of the end of the day remaining inventory, by which I will judge my next day's work as taking me below stasis (successful incremental reduction of workload) or above stasis (failure to reduce workload).
Stasis is never zero work product inventory. Work in Process (in lean, WIP) is always a number bigger than zero. Stasis is a relative sum. I can call it "Relative Zero", or zero for all practical purposes, given the fact that I am completely and utterly overloaded with work. In manufacturing, Relative Zero is sometimes achieved, creatively, not on the plant floor, but in pre-production parts inventory control, by achieving JIT (just in time inventory), and eliminating warehouse costs, in addition to other lean re-organizations of processes on the plant floor itself involved in moving a product from sale (nothingness) through the production maze (becoming and being) to delivery (back to nothingness and stasis).
Let me introduce the term PWIP, which lean consultants call PaperWork in Process. Since, I employ lean techniques involving The MasterList tool at both the personal and professional level, and since The MasterList is also employed by artisans and other career non-office workers, I define PWIP as Personal or Professional Work In Process.
So, the trick at a personal or professional (service) level handling a complex spectrum of tasks that are building up involving phone, email, computer screen, and paper document inventory (or, even if you are involved with more physical inventory at the personal level, like managing artistic materials, multiple art objects, or yard work, or are managing a small business) all directed to a physical or abstract finished product that may or may not be an object, or could simply be an objective or series of objectives, is how to achieve a balanced PWIP. With The MasterList this can be done in ways that are similar to what has been achieved in the manufacturing process with JIT, and by applying the Toyota Way, and other lean manufacturing techniques.
The answer for the career professional or dedicated personal task-minder, applying our tool, The MasterList, is: Inner Lean.
Inner Lean is the development of personal analytical, organizational, and process methodologies that keep PWIP in balance, with the goal of bringing it down, or allowing more PWIP to be added without creating overload. This requires focus on incept recognition, process particulars, and closure parameters.
So, what do we do in practice to accomplish Inner Lean? Well, to harp on our favorite tool, we utilize a combination of personal assessment techniques combined with The MasterList to manage and control PWIP to get it done. Like JIT, The MasterList, is a creative tool, that embodies a process, for handling aspects of professional and personal work in process, as if it was parts inventory.
Let's start with Incept Recognition and assess why if closure can never be immediate, we need a tool like The MasterList to inventory PWIP, to wait its turn in the process of competing tasks or projects in process, so that we can get closure.
A call comes in. Mail comes in. An assignment comes in. Email comes in. A project, task, or response task, has been incepted. Since we can only put one pant leg on in the instant, chances are that having recognized the incept of a potential action, or work task, we can do little more than add it to the PWIP load, without getting to immediate closure. The only alternative is stopping work on whatever PWIP task we had benched before us at the prior moment. It's a deadening choice either way. We either stop one thing, or fail to start the other.
Here's where The MasterList comes in. If we have an associated project, we can place the potential task in that project with referents for time, person, and associated data and links, as well as relating it to companion tasks for the same projects for ourselves and others. And, by combing the task lists and using our time reallocation tools (time-blaster) we can re-sequence the priority and timing of the entire project in seconds. Then, the system will automatically remind us through the My Day list, when it is "just in time" to get back to the incepted task and actually work it, or decide in that future instant to put it off further based on relative priority.
So, that brings us to the total inventory of PWIP. Since The MasterList lists all personal and/or professional work in progress chronologically, it can be compared at any moment with all other chronological "potentials", so that accurate priority decisions can be made on an objective basis, without giving in to subjective external pressures.
Finally, with The MasterList, closure is accelerated on priority projects, or projects and sub-tasks can be more easily re-prioritized because there is continual refreshment of the overall list of incepted actions still in progress, with constant re-prioritization, easily accomplished in seconds per list, not just seconds per task. This yields WIP-slices that are meaningful for today vs. all PWIP whether prioritized or not.
So, to sum up, if you focus on inner lean; and use the routine of working incept actions through The MasterList to allow continuous refreshment of PWIP overview towards closure, you are more likely to see and choose a better mix of priorities in any instant for exact handling of the best one for the moment. This will result in more efficient closure of work product.
