“Identifying the Time Span of the first task is easy,” Audrey continued. We were talking about the Time Spans of different tasks to figure out how big, big is. “The first task is just moving some junk out of the way in the loading bay, so forty five minutes.

“But, the second task, where we have to anticipate all the different things that move through the loading bay, that will take longer to think about. Plus we have cargo containers that get loaded in the bay, so we have to stack things in different places when that happens. If I had to create a policy for how we move things through the loading bay, I would have to think about all those things.”

“And if we set perimeters around the loading bay using safety tape to mark zones for received materials versus outgoing materials, would that also be part of the thinking?” I asked.

“You’re right, this would be a big job,” Audrey concluded.

“Okay, how big of a job? Use Time Span to describe it.”

“We are going to have to talk to the Shipping Manager and get his input. We will also have to get with our Freight Coordinator to find out what kind of vehicles and containers we load. The Purchasing Manager can tell us about incoming materials. The Safety Director can help us understand the physical perimeters and safety zones, how high we can stack stuff. Then we will have to write the policy, present it through a couple of meetings to get more input and revisions. This will probably take a month. I will say the Time Span of this project to be about a month.”

“So, when you think about how big a job is, we can use Time Span to more precisely describe its complexity?”

“Yes,” replied Audrey. “And it will also help me pick the right person for the assignment.” -TF