From Guild Secrets to Modern Work: Process Thinking is the Key to your Productivity - DBR 085

Today, I'm going to outline the current progress in the pursuit of increasing knowledge work productivity. I'll have some suggestions about how you can improve your productivity. Mostly, this is encouragement and motivation to do the work required to get on top of your game and stay there.

• Purpose: understand that Knowledge Work Productivity is not a solved problem while recognizing good directions to go to solve it.
• Value for you #1: understand where we are in this work, so you'll know where to go next.
• Value for you #2: recognizing that knowledge work management represents a competitive advantage in the market for talent. You'll be 1) more productive, 2) less burned-out, 3) a faster learner, and 4) better at your job as you develop these skills.

Knowledge Worker Productivity as an Unsolved Problem

• Knowledge worker productivity is not a solved problem, and individuals should avoid being complacent with existing tools or solutions.

Historical Context: Scientific Management

• Historically, manual work processes were often guarded secrets within guilds, creating a "mystery" around how tasks were performed and hindering process improvement thinking.
• In the early 20th century, Taylor introduced time and motion studies to break down work into discrete steps and identify improvements.

The Gap in Knowledge Work Analysis

• A scientific management analysis of knowledge work has not yet been performed.
• Individuals often believe their knowledge work is uniquely different and cannot benefit from generalized process improvements.

Critique of Productivity Tools

• Productivity tools are often not designed for users' personal effectiveness but rather to sell better.
• Software development is expensive, leading companies to avoid costly new features without clear justification, which contributes to software being "relatively static".

Learned Helplessness

• Users may experience "learned helplessness" with computer tools, leading to complacency where they assume existing tools are the best available and avoid the effort of seeking or implementing changes.

Applying Process Analysis to Knowledge Work

• We need a scientific management approach to knowledge work, particularly focusing on personal information management, which is crucial for managing attention.
• This approach involves analyzing sequential steps, breaking down sub-processes, and identifying areas of waste.
• For knowledge workers, "attention" is the primary productive asset to optimize, not just time.

Recommendations for Improving Knowledge Worker Productivity

• Focus first on eliminating waste, especially waste of attention based in task switching.
• Then (and only then) break down processes and improve sub-components.
• Avoid constantly switching tools, the learning curve and difficulty of effective experimentation make it too expensive and often unproductive.
• Instead, engage with your own processes, understand your system, and develop repeatable processes for your work.