Even without time tracking, it is possible to determine at any time whether a project has been worthwhile - with the actual data from the project control system. Renouncing evaluation based on time budgets leads to a significant increase in performance. Therefore, the first step is to deactivate existing time tracking systems to eliminate the disruptive effects that result from it. Both executives and employees benefit from increased efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Therefore, entrepreneurs and managers should ensure that detailed time tracking becomes a thing of the past and that projects develop the right flow. "In today's fast-paced multi-project environment, companies want to accelerate their projects to avoid self-slowdown. Reliability and capacity are expected to increase. Almost self-evidently, with the same resources, without generating additional costs. Organizations expect higher project reliability from detailed time tracking. What follows is disillusionment: Time tracking becomes a change brake that can slow down not only performance but entire companies as well.
1. Time Tracking - Why?
Most companies use time tracking when projects, such as in product development, play a significant role. Time tracking is supposed to:
- determine if a project has been worthwhile,
- help improve future plans/projects to enhance planning quality,
- ensure resource efficiency (performance/utilization of resources) and improve it if possible,
- optimize resource utilization so that employees are constantly busy.
In practice, these goals are not achieved through time tracking. Worse, harmful side effects such as multitasking, demotivation, and defocusing of employees arise.
2. Time Estimates Do Not Work
Driven by time tracking, it is common in project management today to detail project time consumption down to the smallest detail. Projects are expected to be completed on time. Project reliability through process reliability! However, one thing is overlooked: we live in a world of uncertainty and Murphy's Law. This means that we can only estimate the effort and duration for an individual project step. However, these assumptions usually deviate significantly from the actual result.
3. Time Tracking is not Suitable as a Productivity Indicator
When estimating effort, individuals tend to estimate in a way that they are likely to meet the duration with a high probability. On the other hand, set (time) budgets are always at least consumed. Therefore, it is a logical approach for employees to consume their once set budget and not finish earlier. Insights from time tracking are not suitable for improving future plans or determining if resources are working productively enough.
4. "Tactical" Time Tracking
Employees gain no personal additional insights into where disruptions occur through time tracking. Additionally, it has negative implications for employees if they fail to adhere to budgets. Time tracking is done purely "for controlling" - no longer according to reality but "tactically" to fulfill plans, budgets, or requirements as well as possible. This means that the recorded times deviate significantly from the actual necessary time consumption and "match the plan".
5. Projects Flow for Effective Project Workflows
Time tracking often just masks ineffective work methods. Instead, entrepreneurs and managers should focus on improving the organization's work methods to sustainably and permanently increase project performance. Projects flow in three steps:
- Reduce Workload to a Meaningful Level
When we do fewer things simultaneously, everything goes faster. A logical wisdom that also applies in project organization. Resources have sufficient capacity, and instead of harmful multitasking, there is single-tasking. Projects are better equipped with existing resources and thus completed more quickly, impacting the company's profitability.
- Redefine Personal Reliability
So far, meeting deadlines and budgets has defined the reliability of projects and employees. From now on, reliability means single-tasking and focusing on completing the task in the required quality as quickly as possible. This ensures that projects become shorter and effort decreases.
- Provide Clear Priorities
When two projects compete for the same resource, resource managers always know exactly which project to work on now until it is finished. Meanwhile, the other project is put on hold. This ensures that projects or tasks in the projects are better equipped with resources. The motto here is also single-tasking instead of back and forth in multitasking mode.
6. Evaluate Successes Instead of Measuring Time
One original purpose of time tracking is to improve the quality of future plans. However, time tracking cannot achieve this. Organizations that replace harmful multitasking with productive mechanisms in their workflows and analyze the resulting data develop valuable experience to draw from for future project plans. Furthermore, data from time tracking is often used to measure the actual utilization of resource groups. While this approach is feasible, the current actual utilization is irrelevant. More significant are the future and planned resource utilization. Not to fully utilize them - as we now know this leads to inefficiency and ineffectiveness - but to predict if planned utilization will lead to chronic overload. The performance of employees and resource groups is no longer judged based on how well a plan is adhered to but on whether employees behave as expected. Executives who evaluate employees based on time tracking metrics are relinquishing essential responsibility to a system. The Projects Flow path to more success in project management is: define tasks, focus on them, and complete them as quickly as possible! No performance evaluation tool, just observing work and communicating with employees pave the way for reliable projects.
