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The goal is to figure out how to eliminate or minimize “Category 1 Tasks,” that is, things that you have to do, but don’t want to do…or maybe a better way to say it is “but wouldn’t do if you didn’t have to.” 

Examples of Category 1 Tasks include things like

- Laundry
- Shopping
- Paying bills
- Errands
- Cooking (usually)
- Chores (e.g., cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, weeding the garden)
- Routine work (for me, the non-creative stuff like sending out invoices, cranking out documents, arranging travel, making revisions, etc.)
- Helping other people do things…okay, this one can be on the border between 1 and 2.

The question is, how can we reduce these things without getting in trouble? Our choices for dealing with Category 1 tasks would logically appear to be

Options for Getting Rid of Them

1. Delegate them
2. Obselete them
3. Avoid them by not committing to them in the first place
4. Avoid them by just not doing them

Options for Minimizing Them

1. Figure out how to do them faster
2. Figure out how to automate them
3. Figure out how to do them less frequently

These all sound good in theory…but really, how do you do it?

Options for Getting Rid of Them

1. Delegate them–Not always an option, especially for personal tasks. Still, there are probably things that could be handed-off to kids, businesses, lower-cost resources. The office manager where I worked years ago used the rule “if it is recurring work, such as cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, etc., delegate it. If it is a project, i.e., has a defined beginning and end, then do it yourself.”

The downside of delegating is that you have to be willing to give up some level of control. And, you won’t be able to completely delegate, that is, you won’t be able to hand it off, walk away, and never think about it again. Finally, it can help to “look micro.” Maybe you can’t have the kids do the laundry but you can have them fold clothes, put things away.

2. Obselete them–Here is where technology can maybe work or maybe it actually add work instead. Paying bills on-line saves lots of minutes writing checks and addressing envelopes. (But in some cases, it may still be faster to balance your checkbook using the paper statement.)

Quite often, the tried and true “time and motion” study can help you really understand the work and where your time is really going. This method will work well if used for a number of household tasks. Like anything, you have to observe the work closely for a little while to be able to find opportunities for improvement (and to see where you are doing things just because you are used to doing them).

3. Avoid them by not committing to them in the first place.

There are always those opportunities to take on new responsibilities. That committee you are asked to join. That volunteer activity that you are uniquely qualified for. They may be fun at first but it is important to be careful with commitments. Often it seems like the time commitment is minor. But, when things get going, they tend to expand rather than contract.

4. Avoid them by just not doing them

Well, #4 is a non-issue. By definition, if it is something you have to do, you don’t have the option to avoid it. For example, paying taxes. You can try to just not pay them but sooner or later, it will come back to bite you. Same with not mowing the lawn or maintaining the house…in these situations, it is usually pay me some now or lots later.

OK, what about at least reducing the drain on your time?

1. Figure out how to do them faster.

This is another case where technology can help. But another, low-tech approach is simply to avoid peak traffic. Going to the home improvement (or grocery) store on Saturday takes a lot longer than during the week. If your lunch hour is flexible, you can probably get rid of a lot of miscellaneous errands by doing them at 11am on a Tuesday. It is probably too obvious to mention that making a list is important. Obviously, a list will help prevent having to go back for things you forgot. But, I find that a list also helps me to focus–just get what I can for and go with no distractions or trying to remember “is that everything?”

Another low-tech approach is to understand your personal energy level at different times during the day. For me, writing is much easier before noon. After noon, or even worse, after dinner, is no time for me to do something that requires mental energy. But if I do something active, I can get quite a bit done. (This is partly why I think facilitating meetings works better when you use a flipchart instead of typing on a computer–the movement, even though not extreme, generates energy.)

2.  Figure out how to automate them. By automate, I mean get them done with no effort…you don’t have to remember or do anything. About the only thing in that category that comes to mind is the auto-bill paying function many banks offer.

3.  Figure out how to do them less frequently. We have found significant time savings in managing our grocery shopping process. We put together a weekly menu and, as a result, make fewer trips (ideally, just one) to the store.

Ultimately, it might just come down to continually pushing yourself to do things as quickly as possible. In the case of category 1 tasks, working at a leisurely pace to allow reflection and creativity is pointless. The only good thing about these tasks is getting them done and over with.

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Just a thought–people often complain about complexity. We don’t like complex instructions. We don’t like complex explanations when we want someone to do something for us. As a rule, we don’t like politicians to give us complex scenarios regarding the economy or foreign relations.

But, listening to sports fans discussing strategy during a game or professionals discussing their technology makes you wonder if our dislike for complexity is selective.

It is. Basically, we only dislike complexity when dealing with things we don’t care about. If you just want to turn on your new computer and start sending emails, you don’t want a complex set of steps for configuring everything. But, if you are a computer professional, it may not irritate you…you might even find it interesting.

Ultimately, for human performance professionals, the primary focus is your audience. When we are creating user instructions or designing a tool or process, we put a lot of effort into stripping out excess complexity. To the user, the task they are doing is what is of interest, not using your tool or process. If your tool/process works in the real situation, it will have had to address complexity but made it manageable. The end user should see it as a way to give them an advantage in doing their thing.

We’ve all seen solutions that are “simplistic.” (To say “too simplistic” is redundant–simplistic implies oversimplified.) Simplistic solutions don’t accommodate the complexity in the real world and, as a result, do not give the user any advantage in getting their task accomplished.

One of the key disciplines to develop as a human performance professional is the ability to deal with your master performers’ and subject experts’ enjoyment of the complexities of their domain. They probably won’t recognize it but they use tons of jargon, love to discuss esoteric details (things that are the exception, not the rule), and they DON’T like to explain the fundamentals. (They might like to talk about the importance of the fundamentals but they assume everyone knows what they are.)

So, we need to get acquainted with their world enough to understand their conversations but then also extract the basics that learners need.

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Tom Gilbert, in his book “Engineering Human Performance,” asserts that the purpose of performance improvement should be to generate leisure. It could be argued that this is the purpose of time management as well.

Unfortunately, the reality is that, because we exist in a competitive enviroment, any time that is freed up by performance improvement (or good time management) rarely ends up being available for leisure. (There is a lot of truth to the cliche that the reward for getting more work done is getting more work to do. Our neighbor used to say that all he got for working his fingers to the bone was bony fingers!) GTD (or any system) won’t change the way the planet operates.

Is there a way to win at this game? Here is the problem. I have always thought of my complete set of “things to do” as being broken into the following three categories.

1. Things I have to do

2. Things I ought to do

3. Things I want to do

My frustration comes when the things I have to do crowd out everything else. When I analyze it, I believe the ideal internal state is reached when you completely eliminate category 1. And, I don’t think I am alone. Consider what people say/do when they have enough money to make virtually any choice a feasible alternative. They hire assistants (to do the crud), they have things delivered (to avoid errands), they quit their jobs (to avoid selling their time), etc…all of which eliminates or minimizes category #1.

The GTD method is great for making sure you don’t miss anything in category #1 but it actually seems that, by being more rigorous, you actually find more category #1 stuff to do!! (Technically, that’s probably wrong…but it feels that way.)

Since most of us will never become completely free of category #1, the key to getting to #2 and #3 stuff can only be to find ways to at least minimize category #1 tasks. Either by doing them faster or by eliminating them entirely, either through delegation or discontinuance. In process improvement terms, category #1 tasks are essentially non-value-added tasks. (They are a little different–they do need to be done–they just don’t provide much of a sense of accomplishment or meaning.) Next post we will look at ways of minimizing or eliminating category 1, stuff you have to do.

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One of the toughest decisions is whether to use paper or electronic tools for running meetings, managing to-do’s, even taking notes. Paper wins for speed, flexibility, and the ability to look at more of it at once…you can spread it out.

Electronic wins though for portability…and who doesn’t want to eliminate paper?

In general, we use paper for facilitating group work sessions because that is the only way to keep up. Using a computer to enter data creates a drag on the entire process, no matter how fluent the operator is. And it is next to impossible to facilitate the group if you have to look at the screen and think about your typing. And, by papering the walls, you have a visual point of reference to point to during the discussion as needed (as well as edit to incorporate later ideas).

For managing to-do’s, it is trickier. There are lots of good task management programs and, by using the computer (e.g., Outlook, Vitalist, etc.) you avoid having to re-write the same items when you cross off most of them but still have a few left. And you can sort by due date, by project, by context (e.g., calls, errands, office, internet, etc.). And, many of the programs work on your cellphone as well as your computer, so you have the information available at pretty much all times.

The most subtle challenge may be in creating output. I have gotten fairly fluent with the mainstream Microsoft Office Suite but somehow it is hard to create the first version of something using the computer. When I need to move quickly, handwriting the original and then having someone enter the data works the best…even if I have to tweak every page.

Probably the root question is organization. When creating output, you need to be able to capture and massage ideas as they are generated…which is not always the final sequence. Paper allows you to jump around, easily go back and make changes, get the gist of the content documented without bogging down to fix minor cosmetic details.

Finally, I had a client mention something I had never thought of…that the handwriten flipchart pages are more pleasant to look at! (Most of the production staff who have had the task of transcribing the data would probably disagree!) But maybe they are easier to look at than a computer or projector screen. Maybe the use of diagrams or multiple colors used make it easier to read/consume the information.

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Well actually, GTD is great. (GTD is a personal productivity system by David Allen…sort of like time management for the internet age.) I bought the book on CD and have listened to it multiple times. (Partly because one hearing was not enough–it is hard to grasp this kind of information by listening–but also because the information was useful.) I have implemented a bunch of the ideas.

But the very first listen flagged a problem for me and it still nags at me. The presumption is that we really can’t control how we spend our time (or, in GTD parlance, the actions we perform). Again, the system works pretty well because capturing everything makes it all visible and then you can “intuitively” make a decision “in the moment” about what you will actually work on. But it seems like this approach still puts you at the mercy of demands and requirements that you can’t control. Which, in many ways, is real. But that is the crux of why people want time management systems in the first place. So they can get out from under outside demands that cause stress and take you away from getting your goals met.

Ultimately, the danger of deciding “in the moment” and “renegotiating commitments” when we can’t meet them is that deadlines get missed. When you don’t plan ALL the steps you need to take to get you to the finish line, you are building in guaranteed future slippage. If everyone is overbooked and only worries about the next action, the entire organization will eventually grind to a halt when they look up at the deadline and only have half the actions completed.

In the end, the only options still end up with us needing to either do things faster or to do fewer things. The key is not to continuously renegotiate commitments (like an endless chain of continuances in a court case) but to make them more carefully in the first place. Ultimately, it means the job of leadership is to provide focus and to exclude unproductive activity so that the time and energy can be applied to meeting the organization’s goals. This is difficult. It is risky. But it is vitally important work that only leadership can do.

Disclaimer: David Allen does talk about project planning and commitment management. I’m pretty sure his focus on the next action is really a strategy to get people to stop talking about things and start doing them. We’ve all been in (usually large) companies where meetings are endless discussion of big picture ideas with little specific next steps to move things forward.

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It is much easier to do something well when nobody is bugging you…isn’t it? Look at Rex Grossman, Bears (sometime) quarterback. Every mistake he makes is analyzed in the media until I would have to imagine he can’t do anything without second-guessing himself. If you watch other teams play, it turns out their quarterbacks throw interceptions and fumble occasionally as well.

On the other hand, if there is no oversight and no competition, it often creates an environment that performs horribly. The stereotype is the government office or monopoly business where you wait in interminable lines only to be told when you get to the window that you need a different form and to go wait in a different line.

Somewhere in the middle is probably the “sweet spot” for being both productive and supportive. This is really the challenge of line management. Too much competition and pressure leads to backstabbing, stealing credit for ideas, hoarding ideas, playing politics, and a host of things that make work a stressful nightmare for many.

But if every mistake is excused and management takes the blame for every problem (we didn’t provide good enough instructions, we didn’t plan well enough, they didn’t have access to the right information, responsibilities are unclear, etc.) performance degrades to the lowest common denominator.

Performance technology has a lot to say about pressure and performance.

For one thing, to perform effectively (which is the main point, true?) employees need to know what is expected, how it will be measured, and what will happen to them if they don’t meet or exceed expectations.

Another, the performers need access to the right environmental supports. The right tools. The information they need. Work processes that make sense.

And, the performers need to be capable of performing. They need to have the skills and knowledge they need to perform the tasks they are asked to execute.

If management can see that the above has been met, it seems fair for them to demand results. But they need to be within some subjective range of what is acceptable in the culture. In some workplaces, management can get in employees’ faces and in others that would be harassment. (I’m not advocating getting in people’s faces by the way.) But the culture is where fuzzy lines are drawn about how much pressure is enough and how much is too much. Some raises the bar. Too much frustrates and antagonizes employees.

At a call center we once worked with, there were hourly sales promotions where agents would push specific products and services and management would keep score. The highest-selling agents received points and prizes–very immediate feedback. But also an hourly re-set…if you did poorly in the morning, you still had a chance to win in the afternoon.

In a financial services business, security traders and trade processors have daily deadlines for completing trades and sending payment, etc. Failure to meet the deadline could result in fines to the business. Also, a high-pressure work setting. They normally get it done. Pressure, in this setting, results in performance.

Ultimately, it seems that pressure is a necessary evil. Creative and knowledge workers often lament deadlines and insufficient cycle time that “keep us from doing really do good work.” But, some of the best solutions we’ve come up with have been because we needed to…we had a deadline and, as a result, we were focussed, we eliminated distracting ideas quickly, and we found the shortest path. If you are a manager, ask yourself, are you applying the right amount of pressure in your organization to ensure performance?

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Ok…I am all for quality improvement and a systematic approach to in. So in a way, I am actually a fan of Six Sigma…but sometimes it justs annoying. 

1. For one thing, they get all the cool projects. Before there was Six Sigma, you could identify a way to improve things, figure out the cost/benefit to the company, and do the project. (In fact, Human Performance Technology was based on this approach and predates Six Sigma…it just didn’t get the visibility…) But now, with Six Sigma, in many companies if your business case is any good, your idea may end up being turned into a Six Sigma project. So some blackbelt gets all the glory and you go back to the same old same old.
2. Based on personal experience as well as comments from others, there are a lot of Six Sigma practitioners who really don’t know what they are doing. Clearly, many are quite competent. But just having the certification does not mean that you necessarily have the capability. Once, while doing a performance analysis meeting, a Six Sigma person observing from the back came up and said that he could see at least ten projects after observing just one day of our meeting. No kidding…we identified them!!! (Well, technically, the meeting participatns, the master performers from the client organization, identified the opportunities…we just facilitated and documented their thinking.)
3. Companies may use Six Sigma as a way to avoid really paying attention to the details of the business operation. Instead, they designate people as Six Sigma experts and then figure process improvement is “handled” and they can “check it off.”
4. Fixation with process instead of results. A standard process only provides a logical template for actions. But, if you think it through, you may just as well come up with a sound process without having to add the extra structure and formality that Six Sigma may entail. Sometimes that structure helps. But sometimes it just creates needless bureaucracy.
5. Remember when process mapping came out and suddenly everybody had to map every process? Teams were running around mapping processes all over the place…instead of getting work done!! Six Sigma, like anything that becomes a fad or trend, is in danger of the same thing, as is lean manufacturing. Instead of improving the business, the risk is that you just add another layer of work processes and more overhead.
6. In most cases, Six Sigma teams find cost reductions. When used for innovation, there is less success. (Some would argue that targeting innovation is an inappropriate application for Six Sigma…but it happens.)
7. Of course the worst problem with Six Sigma is the same as happened with Y2K and many SAP initiatives–it drains budget and attention that could be used for other important consulting…like human performance improvement, curriculum design, training development!!

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What is a performance test?

A performance test is esssentially a checklist of key performance characteristics that define the criteria for successful performance. The checklist is used during observation of performance (or to review the result or output of performance) to assess whether the performance is acceptable. Performance tests can be used as a “gate” to determine whether performers are ready to “go solo” or simply as a way to verify capability (e.g., in a training course).

By contrast, a knowledge test attempts to assess the learner’s retention and recall of information or, occasionally, the application of rules.
 

Why I like performance tests.

Performance tests have several advantages over knowledge tests.

1. A performance test measures the right things. 

Assuming that your focus is on performance, a performance test is going to tell you what you should want to know. Specifically, it will tell you what people can do overall, and at a more granular level. It doesn’t tell you the learner “knows” the rules of the road…it tells you the learner can follow the rules of the road, steer and stop the car appropriately, use lanes correctly, follow traffic signals and signs, monitor other drivers’ movements, or any other criteria built into the test. As a benefit, it also tells you if they know the rules of the road based on whether or not they follow the rules in the course of performance!

2. A performance tests defines the work and the criteria for performance.

This is not trivial. In almost every case where we have developed performance tests (including work environments where there are detailed SOPs for every task) we have created new knowledge. That is, we have identified or clarified tasks or techniques or sequences that were missing or incorrect in existing documentation. Usually, the criteria for performance we define at the task level has not been previously documented. (In many cases, employees had figured these things out but they had not been communicated or standardized.) This is valuable to the business.

Clarifying performance requirements usually also simplifies the performance. It takes some of the mystique out of ”mastery” but makes it easier for all performers to perform effectively.
 

3. Performance tests connect training to performance.

The actual performance test instrument, as mentioned earlier, is typically a description of the work down to the task level. It includes criteria for successful performance that are as clear and objective as possible–instrument must be able to yield consistent results when used by multiple evaluators. In many cases, the performance test is used as a job aid by learners and a training by coaches and supervisors (in addition to being used for assessment).

4. If the performance test is done well, it is a more accurate test of capability than a knowledge test.

Actually performing almost always requires more than simple recall of information or even application of rules. It requires putting everything together in a real situation. That includes information, use of tools/resources, situational factors, and even “noise” in the environment. Performance often happens in “real time” where knowledge tests are usually off-line (or “stop time”). For example, knowing traffic laws (the “written test”) is not a good test for whether a teenager can actually drive, that is, can actually navigate through traffic and make good decisions in the moment. 

5. You don’t have to hide the answers.

A performance test, including the key performance criteria, can be published to anyone. With a performance test, just because you know what is expected doesn’t mean you can do it. So there is no need to hide or randomize the questions and answers. (This is why it can be used by learners as a job aid.)
 

6. (There is the potential to) get work done during the testing process.

In a business situation, the performance test can often be administered by a “master performer” (who has been trained/qualified to administer performance tests). So while the learner is being tested, he or she is actually doing real work. It may be at a slower rate and may require an additional resource (i.e., the master performer) to evaluate it more closely than normal, it is still resulting in output. And, you would hope that someone would be checking the work of any new (or unqualified) performer anyway so it is not an incremental increase in resource.

7. Managing learner expectations for “going solo.”

Instead of the learner “watching and learning” with the master performer for an undetermined period of time, a specific gate is identified and the learner, master performer, and supervisor will have a clear point in time for when the learner is ready to solo.

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May 1-3 was the ISPI International Conference, held in San Francisco. We presented on three topics in which the common themes were performance testing and qualification and rapid, object-based design and development.

We have sort of backed into performance testing through our experience in working with clients in regulated industries. Performance testing is an effective way to verify capability as well as manage the learning cycle time.

The same could be said of our rapid development methods. We needed a way to build a lot of training quickly so we created a simple set of tools and rules to allow a number of developers to work in parallel without the waste and confusion that usually characterizes accelerated development in any field.

Of course, we didn’t really get to enjoy San Francisco…when I wasn’t presenting or attending a session, I was catching up on work or correspondence. But ISPI has always been about the content–it really isn’t a boondoggle-type conference.

If you are interested in any of our materials, go to www.prhconsulting.com and click the link on the front page to go directly to a list of presentations and tools. And if you want to start a dialog about any of them, please do!

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One of the biggest complaints we often hear when we design a modular curriculum is that it is too complex.

First of all, every job I have analyzed is pretty complex so why wouldn’t a comprehensive curriculum to capture and distribute that know-how be complex also?

But PLEASE!! Listen to conversations between people who perform the jobs, especially the best performers. If you are uninitiated, you will hear an incomprehensible barrage of jargon, minutae, exceptions, esoteric rules, and assumed understanding of advanced technical concepts. Nothing wrong with that…in fact, you would hope that, after doing a job for a long time in “the big leagues” (i.e., large corporation) you would be an advanced professional. The question is, why ask people doing the training job to keep everything in layman’s terms? Even worse, in terms everyone can relate to from grade school?

The bottom line is that, when you analyze a job, you find that practitioners have a great deal of know-how. When you pile it up in one place, it looks overwhelming. But, they didn’t learn it like that any more than a company learns how to make transmissions or medicines or control systems in one month. That know-how is accumulated over time. But, if you were to try to start a competitive organization in a mature industry today, you need to identify and collect as much of that know-how right away. It would be an immense task so you wouldn’t try to do it in one or two months.

An effective strategy for building capability (e.g., curriculum, knowledge management system, competency system, etc.) has to deal with the complexity that is there in the “real world.” Technology always changes. People have widely varying natural capabilities and interests and backgrounds. Capability can be conveyed to an individual through formal training, on-the-job coaching, unguided experience (i.e., trial and error), by reading, and through tools (like references). That ends up being a large number of decisions so it does get complex. Unless you have a process for working through those decisions, it is easy to get lost and frustrated and, then, to decide that ”it should be easier.” Maybe it would be nice if it was, but it isn’t. 

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