If your computer is infected with a virus you might have to restore your data at one moment in time. This is like going back in time. Time you could have spend on production. There are other incidents that require you to go back from where you came from. A nuisance if your time is limited.
There are so many activities to organize and so little time to finish them. It is like a Formula One race: speed is all that counts.
When the pressure to perform is high and when many teams of different disciplines engage in assembling different pieces of the overall cake, you might forget something down the road.
Moving is a very natural behaviour and to continue to produce, to design and to create is what finally counts; productivity. But this productivity could end up in “non-productivity” if the various parts do not match when finishing the job. And one of the causes could be that somewhere between the teams shows up this inadequate assumption.
Organizations become more and more complex, not in the last place because of an internet trend, where activities are increasingly interlaced. Creating a product is done by assembling different parts designed by a variation of disciplines. Business services are not less complex and the probability of a mismatch increases with the number of disciplines involved.
To increase productivity you need an additional role that is concerned with managing these assumptions that are made during the process.
On an interpersonal level, an assumption could produce an interference. “I thought that you thought that..,” don’t we all experience this once in a while?
But in organization and team interactions the tacit assumptions will do more harm. If you run to the supermarket but you forget to bring money with you, you need to go back...
You can reduce these times where you need to go back, by introducing an broker role. Someone, somewhere how is involved in managing assumptions; what have we agreed, what is uncertain but assumed to be like this or that -- just for the moment. You can even set an indicator for this, measuring the number of assumptions that are communicated and solved agreed later.
Managing these assumptions in this way will increase the real productivity and you will notice this, because you do not need to restore as much as before...
© 2006 Hans Bool
Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days. You can apply for a free demo account
