Inefficiency Yields Opportunity(codingvc.com)
codingvc.com
Inefficiency Yields Opportunity
http://codingvc.com/inefficiency-yields-opportunity
4 comments
(I'm the author.) Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the statistics are emotional and not completely translatable to productive time, though I do think the numbers are still significant. Specifically, I think these types of savings compound, so that if you can save one minute of time on each of a 20 daily tasks, then at the end of the day you could have an extra 20-minute continuous block, which is much more valuable than 20 1-minute blocks.
Re: .05% -- I personally think mentioning GPD is useful because .05% sounds fairly trivial, but .05% of the GPD is still something like eight billion dollars, which is a very non-trivial amount.
Finally, I really like the philosophy of the blog post you linked to, but I think it's talking about a slightly different point. The examples I gave are about a single organization doing something that saves an aggregate of millions of hours or millions of dollars; they are not about trying to convince millions of individuals make a conscious choice to each save one dollar or a few minutes. In the language of the linked post, I would consider the latter to be a million minnows while the former is a single shark.
Re: .05% -- I personally think mentioning GPD is useful because .05% sounds fairly trivial, but .05% of the GPD is still something like eight billion dollars, which is a very non-trivial amount.
Finally, I really like the philosophy of the blog post you linked to, but I think it's talking about a slightly different point. The examples I gave are about a single organization doing something that saves an aggregate of millions of hours or millions of dollars; they are not about trying to convince millions of individuals make a conscious choice to each save one dollar or a few minutes. In the language of the linked post, I would consider the latter to be a million minnows while the former is a single shark.
I think the author's purpose is to explore where value can be added to various processes. The first part is to ID areas where value could potentially be added. In some of the examples, the author doesn't seem to address the concept of concentrated benefits outweighing dispersed costs. Another is that one party's muda is often another's profit.
This is why I think the smartphone took off as rapidly as it did. If you look at a modern waiting room, 80% of people are staring at their phones, playing games, surfing the web or checking their email.
Previously, people might have a book or a discman on them but many people had nothing and were simply sitting bored. Now, they're at least at 50% productivity if not more.
The smartphone alone eliminates half of the losses that the DMV has caused.
Previously, people might have a book or a discman on them but many people had nothing and were simply sitting bored. Now, they're at least at 50% productivity if not more.
The smartphone alone eliminates half of the losses that the DMV has caused.
Yes its like in the 70's when the UK had massive power cuts and the entire country worked a 3 day week - output did not decline by 2/5's
And say you take a half day off to visit the DMV your in 95% of the cases not going to get more or less things done that week - unless your a piece worker on a production line which for HN readers is probably zero
And say you take a half day off to visit the DMV your in 95% of the cases not going to get more or less things done that week - unless your a piece worker on a production line which for HN readers is probably zero
This quest for eliminating inefficiencies often creates a cycle in terms of products designed to eliminate them.
In the first stage, every individual efficiency (or a related group) will lend itself to a new application that significantly changes the equation.
However, as the number of these applications increase substantial efficiency benefits can be reaped by aggregating /replicating these functionalities in one place - sometimes even at the cost of a little inefficiency. But once these inefficiencies start paining a user segment, we start with step #1 all over again
In the first stage, every individual efficiency (or a related group) will lend itself to a new application that significantly changes the equation.
However, as the number of these applications increase substantial efficiency benefits can be reaped by aggregating /replicating these functionalities in one place - sometimes even at the cost of a little inefficiency. But once these inefficiencies start paining a user segment, we start with step #1 all over again
In a lot of examples he gives it's not just a matter of time, but it's a matter of people's limited cognitive capacity.
In the example of the Target data breach you just learn to click on the UAC dialog every time, click on the EULA and not read it, delete emails that have URGENT in the subject line, not look at anything on a web page that is designed to catch your eye, etc.
In the example of the Target data breach you just learn to click on the UAC dialog every time, click on the EULA and not read it, delete emails that have URGENT in the subject line, not look at anything on a web page that is designed to catch your eye, etc.
I don't really accept the idea that 3 years of time was wasted because of a 30 second recording. I just activated a new card, I wasn't working, I was waiting for the costco lady to make a new batch of samples. Those 30 seconds were sunk no matter what.
I think its kind of a fallacy to suggest that human time can be summed in much the same way computer resources can be.
I think its kind of a fallacy to suggest that human time can be summed in much the same way computer resources can be.
I was thinking the same thing about google search results. The .1s difference can aggregate to a lot of hours, but in reality, I cannot effectively utilize my .1s - It literally is too small of a unit of time to be useful.
When looking to optimize human time - the low hanging fruit is always the most impactful. Shaving 2 minutes off a 10 minute task means nothing to me if the task is a rare one - I will still schedule 20 minutes for it in my planning. On the other hand, if someone turns what used to be a day-long task into something that takes an hour, my planning will be significantly altered and I'll be able to add more productivity into my time.
When looking to optimize human time - the low hanging fruit is always the most impactful. Shaving 2 minutes off a 10 minute task means nothing to me if the task is a rare one - I will still schedule 20 minutes for it in my planning. On the other hand, if someone turns what used to be a day-long task into something that takes an hour, my planning will be significantly altered and I'll be able to add more productivity into my time.
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(I'm the author.) I mostly agree and I also don't think that saving 10 minutes over the course of a month or a year can be directly translated into 10 minutes of work (as it could be with a computer). I think the value of small efficiency boosts is two-fold: first, they compound. Saving a minute on twenty daily tasks gives you twenty minutes of extra time to do something. You could spend that time sleeping or coding or watching TV, but at least you have a choice. So maybe that 10 minutes saved would only produce 3 minutes of additional productive/non-"wasted" time, but that' still something.
The second value is that while one minute is not significant in the course of a day or a week, it can be significant in the course of a single task. For example, until fairly recently, you could get your bank balance in person or over the phone. The former might be a 10-minute task while the latter might take 3 minutes. However, now you can check your balance in seconds via a website or a mobile app. Even though you might checking your balance once a week or once a month, the thought of spending seconds on a task that normally takes minutes is very appealing. If banks only offered balance info via phone, that would be a large inefficiency and a great business opportunity (perhaps for a company like Mint)
The second value is that while one minute is not significant in the course of a day or a week, it can be significant in the course of a single task. For example, until fairly recently, you could get your bank balance in person or over the phone. The former might be a 10-minute task while the latter might take 3 minutes. However, now you can check your balance in seconds via a website or a mobile app. Even though you might checking your balance once a week or once a month, the thought of spending seconds on a task that normally takes minutes is very appealing. If banks only offered balance info via phone, that would be a large inefficiency and a great business opportunity (perhaps for a company like Mint)
It's an annoying, emotional statistic, used in the same way that my cereal box tells me they've saved 30 lorry-loads of cardboard from being produced. In the context of the millions lorry-loads of rubbish generated, it's not important.
I also dislike the 0.05% statistic (which is essentially saying Americans spend 0.05% of their time queueing at the DMV) as it's uselessly emphasized with "a significant amount considering the size of the GDP".
If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little. David MacKay http://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml