Have you ever noticed there is never enough time in the day to figure out where all the time in the day went? How many of you have ever started the day with grand elaborate plans for numerous accomplishments and goals achieved and when it is all said and done, found you have fallen even farther behind without taking so much as a single objective?
When you try to look back at it, it is hard to understand where all the time went. One of the best applications of root cause analysis involves studying the most objective records available. When it comes to productive insight, it is difficult to argue with the addage that one picture is worth a thousand words. You will probably need more than one picture, but thanks to the advent of inexpensive digital cameras and even cell phone cameras, it is not hard to track the course of your day in a simple visual archive. If you take a picture of your desk or workplace at the beginning of a day and then continue to take a picture of everything that demands your attention or disrupts a primary activity, you can get a pretty clear sense of where all that time went.
It is an engineering platitude, but nonetheless accurate for being so, that any problem well-stated is half solved. Assessing in a photographic way what interupts the rhythm and momentum of your workflow can help you better prepare to avoid those interruptions when necessary and eliminate them where appropriate.
As an example, if you looked at the time actually consumed in going to the break room for a soda, it may be just a couple of minutes for the actual task but when you track the start and end times, you realize it consumes a great deal more time due to social interactions and unplanned conversations than you intend. While some of these conversations are entertaining and possibly productive, they suck time and momentum like an industrial vacuum. Consider keeping a cooler with your favorite beverages by your desk and see how much more work is done at the end of the day.
Root cause analysis doesn't have to be complicated. It is a simple process of looking from the beginning to the end and identifying the steps of the process that were unnoticed when they occurred.
