Unplanned work - the silent killer

In my day job I do a lot of work with IT organizations on best practices -- aka 'best known methods' -- and IT process improvement. I spend a lot of time working with various research bodies (such as Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute, the IT Process Institute, along with other industry bodies). Our goal is to determine and evangelize repeatable ways to improve IT efficiency and effectiveness.

For a while, my fellow researchers and I have been talking about "unplanned work" as the silent killer of IT efficiency. Unplanned work is also known as "firefighting," and it usually means you're being totally reactive to what happens to you and your organization.

In a conversation with a colleague of mine a few hours ago, he told me that unplanned work was eating him alive this week. I joked that there are actually two types of unplanned work:

Type 1: This is our traditional definition of reactive firefighting in which you have to deal with urgent stuff didn't expect.

Type 2: This is work that you've consciously added to your list, but you just don't have a plan.

I asked him how much of his unplanned work was self-inflicted -- type #2.

Over the past couple of hours, my mind has drifted back to that discussion and I realized it wasn't just a joke, and it applies to our own personal productivity. When I look at days in my life that have seemed chaotic and unproductive, or taken on a life of their own, I realize that one of these two kinds of unplanned work are often at the heart of my frustration.

And my fondness for procrastination just amplifies both of these. Procrastination is particularly "effective" on Type 2, because those are the situations in which I probably don't know what the next action really is.

After pondering (wallowing?) a bit more, I realized that David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) is effective because it tries to deal with both of these issues head-on. After all, the proper use of GTD combats firefighting by helping you systematically deal with (or renegotiate) the things that "show up" in your day. GTD also combats Type 2 by providing you with a system to ensure that you don't have a bunch of ambiguous, unplanned projects or next inactions sitting there on your action lists.

What about you? Do you find yourself dealing with lots of unplanned work these days? Might be time for a refresher on the basics of Getting Things Done.

Related posts:

• It ain't like brushing your teeth (November 23, 2005)
• Outlook and GTD - Filing and Archiving Tips (September 01, 2005)
• Getting your Inbox to Empty: Dealing with the first email purge (August 24, 2005)
• Related Technorati posts: GTD, Learning, Productivity
• Related Del.icio.us bookmarks: GTD, Learning, Productivity

Comments

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Great reminders Dwayne!

[Dwayne Melancon]

Not trackbacked, but this article is also referenced on the "Carnival of Agilists" Groundhog Day edition --
Carnival posting is hosted this week by Pete Behrens - http://trailridgeconsulting.typepad.com/pete_behrens_blog/2006/02/carnival_of_agi.html

[Bob McIlree]

Managers, project or otherwise, who lay a combination of operational support and project duties on their staffs get what they deserve with respect to unplanned work and 'surprise' firefighting. Separate the two across your organization and the problem will largely go away over time, even if your operational support people have some 'downtime' if there are no crises to handle at any particular moment.

[Dwayne Melancon]

Bob, that is a noble goal, and I agree it would help. One of the challenges: in many organizations, there aren't enough people to segregate things that cleanly, and in others the problem is that people who implement a project often are the "subject matter experts" that have to come in to help fix things when they break.

In the latter, better documentation can help (as well as knowledge transfer / training) but I don't see that done well in many organizations.

Finally, when you translate the analogy to personal productivity (as I have attempted to do above) it is impossible to have someone else deal with half your life.

I think a mitigating control in areas where you can't totally separate the two aspects is to institute a process in which a conscious, deliberate decision about how to deal with (or refuse to deal with) unplanned work is necessary.

Thanks for the insight.

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