How productive are knowledge workers?
It's a topic that's been on and off the agenda of management teams since the late 1950's when people started to realize that a large percentage of employees would one day be part of this group.
Walk into most offices these days and you'll see people working on spreadsheets, Word docs and Powerpoint presentations - home-made applications that 'fill in gaps' to support information analysis and data management needs where the larger process centric business apps don't offer any support. Over the past few years this 'long-tail' of applications demand has grown ever longer. The number of requirements for new apps driven by mobile computing, social networking and the expectations of users for self-service computing has multiplied beyond recognition.
When you have knowledge workers mashing and sharing data on these desktop home-made systems, how can you measure their productivity? Are you PRODUCTIVE if you produce a spreadsheet? I would argue no. Productivity suggests that you contribute towards or produce an outcome, not just do stuff.
Could you imagine manufacturing plants ever being so lax in the way they use their labour force?
If we're going to start making the office environment as productive as the factory floor, managers are going to have to start measuring knowledge worker productivity - and I believe the only way they're going to achieve this is by drawing a line between workforce effort and those defined actions that lead to desired outcomes.
It's a topic that's been on and off the agenda of management teams since the late 1950's when people started to realize that a large percentage of employees would one day be part of this group.
Walk into most offices these days and you'll see people working on spreadsheets, Word docs and Powerpoint presentations - home-made applications that 'fill in gaps' to support information analysis and data management needs where the larger process centric business apps don't offer any support. Over the past few years this 'long-tail' of applications demand has grown ever longer. The number of requirements for new apps driven by mobile computing, social networking and the expectations of users for self-service computing has multiplied beyond recognition.
When you have knowledge workers mashing and sharing data on these desktop home-made systems, how can you measure their productivity? Are you PRODUCTIVE if you produce a spreadsheet? I would argue no. Productivity suggests that you contribute towards or produce an outcome, not just do stuff.
Could you imagine manufacturing plants ever being so lax in the way they use their labour force?
If we're going to start making the office environment as productive as the factory floor, managers are going to have to start measuring knowledge worker productivity - and I believe the only way they're going to achieve this is by drawing a line between workforce effort and those defined actions that lead to desired outcomes.
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