Category Archives: Timespan

Delegation and Time Span

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“My team tells me that I don’t follow-up with them often enough, and that is why I am often disappointed,” complained Sherry. We had been talking about her delegation skills.

“How often is –not often enough-?” I ask.

“It seems to be different for different people.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know,” Sherry paused. “One person can just go longer than another person.”

“Sherry, I want you to think in terms of Time Span. Time Span is the length of time that a person can work into the future without your direction, using their own independent discretionary judgment. And each person on your team has a different time span.

“Here is your exercise. Make a list of your team and beside each name, I want you to guess the length of time that each one can work independently. Your guess will be the first benchmark for how long you leave them to work without follow-up. I want you to keep a log. Once each week, for a month, write down your observations of each team member’s time span. We will get together and talk again.” -TF

Designing the People System

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“So, you want me to really take a step back and look at the interactions between people?” quizzed Lawrence.

“More than just look, I want you to design the interactions between people.” I stopped to watch Lawrence’s face. There was a question behind his eyes.

Since I had his attention, I continued. “Think about these kinds of questions.

  • How are team members given work assignments?
  • How often are they given work assignments?
  • Do team members depend on work product from other team members?
  • How do team members hand off work to other team members?
  • When a team member completes a work assignment, how does their supervisor know?
  • When they complete a work assignment, how do they know what to work on next?
  • Does anyone review or inspect their work?
  • How often is their work reviewed or inspected?
  • Are they permitted to continue on additional work before their current work has been reviewed?
  • Do they work on multiple assignments simultaneously?

“The people system is the most important system you work on. This is just the start.” -TF

Dogs Are Never Late

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Goals are a curiously human phenomenon. Did you ever notice that dogs are never late? Dogs never miss a deadline. Goals create the second dimension of time, the dimension of intention.

I spend time with runners, people who casually run and people who seem particularly driven to run. Something curious occurs when a runner decides to enter a race. Most of the field knows they will NOT be among the place finishers, yet there is a definite change in behavior. Casual morning runs become certain distances. Times are recorded in training logs. The runs are counted, the days until race day are counted. The goal drives behavior.

How do you keep your goals visible? Often, I suggest something visual, a compelling description, a drawing or a photograph. With computer scanners and printers, you can make multiple copies and post them in several places, your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator, on your desk, the dashboard of your car. You can imagine that I have a photograph of a bicycle on my desk with a yellow sticky note that says “Buy now.”

Goals drive behavior, can you see yours? -TF

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Partner’s Time Horizon

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Question:
I’m at wits end. Discussions with my partner are becoming more and more frustrating. He keeps making decisions that have a positive short term impact, but a negative impact in the long run. I try to sit down with him, but the conversation ends up with an argument. I usually back off just to keep the peace, but, sooner or later, the long term will catch up with us.

Response:
Who was it, Yogi Berra, who said “the future ain’t what it used to be.” You are correct. Q1-2005 is just around the corner, it is very short term, but five years ago, Q1-2005 was seriously long term planning. Here is an interesting question, “What decisions did we make 5 years ago that put us precisely in this predicament today going in to 2005?”

Interesting question, but there is more going on here. Your description is a classic dilemma between two people harboring different time horizons. Time Horizon is defined as:

  • The length of time a person can work into the future, without direction, using their own independent, discretionary judgment.

Some people have a one-day Time Horizon, others have one-week, one-month, three-months or a year. Some people can work into the future two years, or five years. Some, even 10 years, thirty years. The decision to build the Hoover Dam was made by a person whose Time Horizon was substantially longer than 5, or even 10 years. People have different Time Horizons, and it’s hard wired.

Finally, I am concerned about the quality of the conversation. To be productive, you have to recast the context of the discussion. In the beginning of the discussion, you have to grant permission to each other to disagree. (What the hell does that mean?) It means creating a structure where opposing viewpoints can be considered and explored. Right now, your structure is an argument. You don’t even explore your own point of view, you back off. Some of my clients use something as simple as the De Bono hats exercise. Each member of the discussion (even if it’s only two people) assumes a different point of view around the problem based on the color of hat they are wearing at the time. White might be legal, green -finance, yellow -short term impacts, blue -long term impacts. Each person argues their color, with passion, exuberance, turning over stones and exploring the extreme. Nobody backs off. The ending decision can now be made with more facts on the table, with all points of view appropriately considered. -TF

If you have a question to submit, you can e-mail: tfoster {at} fosterlearning {dot} org

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Time

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Lester has just returned, “That’s it boss, all done, what’s next?”

And with those innocent words, Lester has just defined the time-span for that specific task. Why is the time-span of a task so critical to the definition of that task? It is an attribute often overlooked. Time, hey, it takes what it takes.

For simple tasks, that take less than a day, or even 2-3 days, the importance of time-span is not so critical, but extend the time-span of a task (or a role) out to a week, out to a month, out to three months, and the dynamics become interesting.

What differences are there between a task that takes 3 days to complete and a task that takes 3 months to complete? In one word, predictability. Most of the elements required to complete a 3 day task are known, very specific, very concrete. Some of the elements required to complete a 3 month task may be unknown or may change prior to the completion of the task. This predictability (or unpredictability) is what makes one task more complex than another. “Yeah, so what’s the big deal about that?”

The “big deal” is that time-span, as an indicator for complexity, can become a discrete unit of measure for the complexity of any task. How complex is a task? If you can describe the time-span of the task, you have just described the complexity of the task. The importance of this measurement is that time-span can be described very specifically. I may not know how to specifically measure the “complexity” of a task or project, but using time-span, I can nail it to the wall: This project has a three-month time span with a deadline of February 15.

Questions:

  • If I can measure the complexity of a project using time-span, can I select a Project Manager using time-span?
  • If I can determine the maximum time-span of a person, can I determine suitability for a role in our company?
  • Can I test a person on the basis of time-span , as they grow and mature, to determine capability for more responsibility?

Hint: the answer is yes. —TF