Comments for Do you really want to track time?

Comment from Euan W Semple on 2007-11-08

2007-11-08T21:04:15Z

You want this I reckon http://tinyurl.com/ypmu5m

Comment from Alex on 2007-11-08

2007-11-09T00:18:59Z

Amen! This is so true, and the PM time management styles most people use is a huge reason for why many organized project fails. Mostly, time is better handled by shorter iterations of anything (meetings, tasks, reports, releases, etc.) and by keeping communication tacitly open. Find ways for people to finish before time instead of on time, and give them the spare time to do whatever they want.

Comment from Jack Vinson on 2007-11-08

2007-11-09T05:01:55Z

Thanks for that link Euan. Good humor (I hope!).

This only serves to demonstrate why time tracking is a mirage. Meetings happen all the time. Many of them feel "unproductive." But can you say which of the meetings actually cost the company money? That is, which meeting (or set of meetings) - if eliminated - is going to make a project come in faster? Corollary: Which meetings are causing projects to be SLOWER. Which meetings _really_ cost more? And I'll bet it is more than the sum of the payscale of each attendee for that hour. It's the cost of the whole project being late!

Goldratt has a quote somewhere: An hour lost at the constraint is lost forever. An hour saved anywhere else is a mirage.