“How do you measure the size of the job?” Eduardo whispered, talking to himself, but making sure I knew he was thinking.

“We have to make a judgment call here,” I said. “We have to decide if Ron is big enough for the job. But to do that, we have to decide how big the job is.”

Eduardo had never thought about work this way. Measuring the size of a job was a little off-the-wall for him, but I could see in his face that it made sense.

“I am thinking, and your question seems logical, but I don’t have a clue how to really measure something like the size of a job.” Eduardo was still with me, but he was out of ideas.

“Think about when Ron was successful, when he was supervising the work to be done. What was the longest task that he had to accomplish, in terms of time?”

Eduardo was thinking. “Do you mean, that he had to hit his daily production targets?”

“In a sense, but I am guessing, if he was supervising, he was working toward a goal with a longer Time Span than daily production.”

“Well, yeah, I mean Ron was in charge of daily production, but some days were up and some days were off and some days, we shut down production for preventive maintenance. We looked at production on a monthly basis.”

“So every month, he had to hit the same number?”

“Well, no. Some months were up and some months were down. Ron had to work to the sales forecast. There was some seasonality to it, and some of the production orders took more than a month to cycle through. We really looked at things on a quarterly basis.”

“So, the Time Span for Ron’s role as a Supervisor was around three months?”

A light bulb went off in Eduardo’s head. “Time Span? Is Time Span the measure of how big the job is?”

“I don’t know,” replied Eduardo. “I just hope he snaps out of it. Ron was our poster boy.”

“Is it a matter of skill, something he can learn, or is it a matter of capability?” I repeated. “You can hope all you want, but if it is a matter of capability, you may not be able to wait.”

“What do you mean?” Eduardo had a new sense of curiosity. “Ron has to snap out of it fast.”

“Tell me again, what has changed with Ron’s role?”

“Well, a year ago, he was supervising a couple of people, making sure the work got done. Now, he has to manage other people who are supervising that work.”

“Is the job bigger, now?” I asked.

Eduardo looked at me, puzzled. “Well, yeah. He has more people, I guess it is more complicated.”

“So the job is bigger now. How do you measure, how much bigger the job is?”

“Measure?” Eduardo had never been asked to measure the size of a job before. “I don’t know,” he continued. “It’s just more complicated, I guess.”

“So, how do you measure the complexity of Ron’s new job?” -TF

From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

I have been reading the section of your website on Time Span and I am curious. How do you measure objectives in terms of Time Span?

Response:

Time Span is a concept I have been working with since 2001. It is based on the research of Elliott Jaques (1917-2003). Time Span is most useful as a measuring stick to determine the complexity of any task. The longer the Time Span of the task, the more complex the task is likely to be.

Attaching a Time Span to an objective is extremely helpful in understanding the breadth and scope of the objective. For example:

Objective – As the department manager, hire a person to fill the vacant position on the team.

In the short term, if the Time Span is described as two weeks, then you can imagine that the tasks involved would include posting an ad, reviewing resumes, conducting some interviews and making a selection.

However, if the Time Span is described as six months, you might imagine a much broader scope for this project. The tasks would extend to bringing that person on board, moving them through the training process and evaluating their initial skill level. This might be followed by supervising additional training and re-evaluating their skill level. Once on the production floor, the manager would select appropriate assignments for this new recruit, then advance them to more complex tasks as time passes. After six months, it might be expected that this new person now possesses the skills and competence to fill the position as a productive member of the team.

Taking this one step further, if the Time Span is described as 12 months, you would imagine an even broader scope. The tasks would extend to evaluating proper staffing levels to determine, if indeed, this vacant position needs filling in the first place.

Time Span, as a unit of measure, helps us understand the breadth and scope of the task, and ultimately the scope of the role. -TF

“So, as you see me struggle with my new role as a manager, what do you see as my biggest challenge?” asked Joel.

“The biggest mistake most companies make is underestimating the Time Span required for success in a role. The biggest mistake most managers make is underestimating the time span required for success in a task,” I replied.

Time Span is the cornerstone for understanding what is necessary. -TF

I could see that Joel was stressed. This was a big job. Joel had been a successful supervisor, but this assignment as a new manager was different for him.

“I was Mr. Nextel walkie-talkie,” he proclaimed. “Life was exciting. Things were always moving.

“But you asked me to make a list of the most important tasks in my new role. I started with the job description. The insight came when I tried to peg the time span associated with each task.

“Here is one,” he continued. “The job description says that I am responsible for making sure we have enough direct labor to meet the production needs for all the cycles during the year.

“At first, I thought it just meant that I should post job vacancies and do some interviews. But when you asked me to attach time span to the task, my head started to spin.

“It was only then, that I realized I needed to research our historical workloads during the three cycles of our year. I had to take a look at our maximum production capacity along with the marketing and sales forecast. I spent the time to lay out all this data for the whole year. I used a line graph to help me visualize it. Then I had to figure out when we needed to meet to capture the actual numbers related to the forecast. The forecast is helpful, but it is often wrong by as much as ten percent.

“All in all, when I looked at my new job, I really have to be planning out 12 months in advance. This is a lot bigger than I thought.”

I smiled at Joel. He was new to the job, but he was beginning to understand the time span necessary to be successful. -TF

Joel laid the list on the table. “It’s weird,” he started, “there were some obvious things, but there were some other things that were more interesting.”

I had asked Joel to make a list of tasks that he had performed as a supervisor and to identify the time span of each task.

“For example,” he continued, “I ran a rolling production schedule out for three weeks. So at any one time, I was working three weeks into the future. But there were some other tasks that were longer than I thought.

“I was in charge of raw materials. We would get in shipments of plastic parts that had to be inspected. There was a time when a whole boatload of parts was defective. In the short term, I had to really move around the production schedule to keep things moving. But in the long term, I had to work with the vendor on getting replacement parts in. I had to figure out what we needed to keep in production, then to build some raw goods inventory.

“Finally, I had to spend several months figuring out what the problem was with the parts, working with the vendor to solve the problem. Turns out, there was a bad batch of resin from another supplier. Because of the problem, the resin supplier actually went out of business and our vendor had to find a new source. I know it was his problem, but I had to work with him, trying out and finally certifying a new resin supplier so our parts would hold up. That whole process took three months and my manager expected me to handle it without a lot of direction from her.”

“So the time span for that project was about three months?” I asked.

“Yes, you could call it three months.”

“So, now in your new job, as a manager, what are some of the tasks that you will be responsible for and what is the time span? Take a look at your job description and meet me back here tomorrow.” -TF

“Tell me, Joel, in making your transition from supervisor to manager, why do you think things slowed down for you?” I asked.

“The biggest difference,” he replied, “is that I am not dealing with things so much as I am dealing with people. When I was a supervisor, I just made sure material got moved around, that machines worked and that everybody was at their workstation. Sure, things shifted around and we changed the schedule all the time, but it was easy compared to this. As a manager, things have slowed down, but it’s a lot harder to get things done. It’s more complicated. I have to think further into the future.”

“How far into the future did you have to think as a supervisor?” I pondered.

Joel thought for a minute. He had never considered the time span he had to work into the future before. “Well, as a supervisor, I guess it was only about two weeks out. That’s how far we scheduled people.”

“Tell you what, Joel. The next time we meet, I want you to list out the longest tasks you had as a supervisor. I want to go over that list with you to see if we can make some sense moving forward as a manager.” -TF