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> Sorry to be so snippy, but shortened deadlines
> certainly DO increase
> productivity. The job gets done in fewer days, which
> is about as direct
> a way of increasing productivity as there is.
On paper, yes. Realistically, it doesn't always happen
that way. In many cases, moving deadlines
up/shortening project time involves a compromise. So,
your measure of productivity needs to account for the
compromise, and that measure may not be comparable to
the initial measure, making it near impossible to
determine if productivity increase actually occurred.
> People figure out on their own how to waste less
> time. They may cut back
> on foosball, or they may cut back on needless rounds
> of revision, or
> they may put the screws to recalcitrant reviewers.
Personally, I discount crap like foosball, potty
breaks, smoke breaks, lunch breaks, chat breaks,
techwr-l breaks, and the like from ANY measure of
productivity.
Productivity involves work. If you're not working, you
are in no way productive. That time should be
discounted from the time spent measuring productivity
if you want to accurately measure a productivity
increase. Otherwise, yeah, if someone spends 10 hours
a week (40 hour week) dicking around when they should
be working, and then actually starts to do real work
all week, you *can* measure that as the person being
25% more productive, but is that true? No. The person
is just now actually doing what they are being paid to
do. They may still be as productive as before, but
they now are productive for the appropriate period of
time.
> Don't micromanage the
> writers' time, in other words; just give them
> shorter deadlines and let
> them figure out where the fat can get trimmed.
I'm not saying that doesn't work - it certainly does.
but, as far as measuring productivity, time spent not
working is time spent not working.
If they're not working, maybe they'd like to not work
more. ;)
=====
Goober Writer
(because life is too short to be inept)
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