“done but” increases wip and turnaround time. profits go … well, you know.
by frank stitely
the relentless cpa
in my last book, i recommended hiring younger staff. in that book, i cautioned that you might have to teach very simple tasks like breathing and using the bathroom to your newbies.
more: keep clients from “balance due” shock | stop clients from performing “favors” | who needs fall tax planning? clients … and you | it’s okay to say no to clients (even the large ones) | control your time: avoid ambush meetings and calls | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity
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one reader posted that she didn’t believe it was the responsibility of an admin department to teach bathroom use. she was new to this hot new writing technique called sarcasm, but she did a great job making my point that you have to teach your staff a lot of basic things.
one of those teaching tasks is the meaning of “done.”
here’s the scenario: you have a client meeting on friday to deliver and review an income tax projection. you assigned the projection on monday. today is thursday. you ask the newbie staff member if he will be done in time for the client meeting.
newbie: “yes, it will be done for certain.”
translating from newbie language into partner language, this means that he hasn’t started yet.
friday morning, about an hour before the client meeting, you ask if he will get the projection done.
newbie: “yes, it’s done, but i didn’t know how to do three things. …” those of us from planet real world know the projection isn’t done.
however, our magnificent system of education teaches kids that it’s the effort that counts, not the result.
you hurriedly complete the projection as the client walks in the door.
there’s no time to teach the newbie the three things he needs to know. you get the worst of all worlds – a hurriedly produced, unreviewed, client deliverable and a newbie who won’t be able to complete the next similar project.
i wish i could state that this only applies to millennials, but we have had to teach pretty much every new employee walking or crawling through our doors the meaning of “done.” we have a phrase for this.
“there are no ‘done buts’ … it’s done or it’s not.”
when we interview our next potential newbie, i have an interview technique in mind. we’ll come up with a reason to get the newbie to go to the restroom. there will be no paper towels in sight.
if the newbie asks where we keep them, he/she is hired on the spot and immediately promoted to manager. i can only wish all our managers in company history had been capable of this level of bathroom competence. the ones who make partners can even replace toilet paper rolls.
sadly, i will not be able to use the above interview technique. we just moved, and our new office space shares bathrooms with other tenants. our bathroom performance problem is solved.
how does bathroom performance relate to our topic of reducing wip or increasing capacity? thanks for asking.
when a newbie delivers 80 percent done work to you, and you are forced to complete the work, you are performing tasks that should be done by less expensive staff. thus, wip increases as does turnaround time to the client.
that’s bad enough, but even worse, “done buts” decrease capacity.
because you are jumping in to save the day at the last minute, the newbie isn’t being properly trained to complete the work for the next time. your firm’s capacity is reduced – not to mention that you aren’t working on the high-value-added tasks that you should be working on.
there is no good news to “done buts.” they are a double whammy to your firm, and probably cause most partner suicides during tax season.