What wastes time?

I was running a session yesterday on time management. We were doing a "brainstorm" on what wastes time. As well as the usual stuff about e-mail mis-use and meetings one feature that was discussed was the most wasteful thing for some was dealing with their own manager's chaos!

It seems that busy fool disease amongst middle and senior managers is still growing as corporate cultures demand individuals to look good and be "busy busy" at the expense of productivity and the people they work for.

Another comment was the bigger the business gets the further its activity goes away from delivering value to its customers at the expense of corporate group think and fluff - interesting.

Good bit of perception from a group with an average age of about 26; perhaps some of our older 50K + earners should think about their behaviours and look in the mirror.

Standing Back From The Cliff Face

Well I actually mean that literally!. I did geology at Uni. and as a consequence still have a look at the old rocks when on holiday.

When you are close up to rock formations on the beach trying to understand what the structure is it gets difficult. Look back at the bay from the cliff path and things become quite obvious very quickly.

What has this muse of the Lower Paleozoic of Pembrokeshire got to do with business architecture?

I sadly thought while walking the coastal path last week that this is just like analysts and architects. Analysts often stand too close to the "rocks" and do measurements in attempt to understand whats going on while architects stand back and see the bigger picture.

The ultimate ability or competence is to do both; which in my experience it is difficult to find individuals that can successfully achieve both.