Do any of the following sound familiar?
- "When will this be done?"
- “We have more findings, and we haven’t completed the old ones.”
- "IT is taking too long."
- “We’re always playing catchup.”
- "This is high priority!"
- "If this doesn't get done by...... then......"
- "IT is so busy."
- "Which project do we need to focus on?"
- New things are started before old things are finished.
If so, then it may be time to sharpen the saw.
Imagine you're walking on a trail through a forest, and you happen upon a woodcutter using a saw to divide a fallen tree. You decide to take a break and watch his craft. As you sit there, up walks a second wood cutter, and sets to work on another tree. The first woodcutter is just sawing and sawing and sawing with little progress, but the second woodcutter makes quick work of his tree. You go over and ask how he did that so fast when the first guy was still working on the same log and started before him. The second woodcutter says, "I just spent the last two hours sharpening every tooth on my saw. I told the other guy yesterday that it looked like his blade was dull, but he said he was too busy to take time to sharpen his saw."
How's your IT Team's "blade"? Does it feel tired, cranky, slow, run-down, too busy, etc.? Much like the woodcutter, many IT teams find themselves tirelessly working, yet making slow progress, because they haven't stopped to 'sharpen their saw’.
Stephen Covey's 7th Habit of Highly Effective People is "Sharpen the Saw". His point is it's important to stop and renew yourself if you want to stay at your best. I think this is not only important at the individual level but also at the team and organizational level.
Having spent many years working in various IT support roles, I know how easy it is to get stuck in a rut and in firefighter mode where you just run back and forth putting out this fire and that fire with little time to be proactive. I still see IT teams get stuck in this mode where the time thieves cause their blades to dull, making very little progress, and at the end of the week/month/etc. their pile of wood is still the same size as it was at the start.
“We overload ourselves and we overload our teams—this is the everyday reality within the information technology sector. And, because we get interrupted all the time, we stop work on one task and start work on a different task, from one project to the next, never focusing on one thing long enough to do it justice. This context-switching kills our ability to settle into work and concentrate sufficiently. As a result, we are unhappy with the quality of our work despite our desire for it to be good.” - Dominica Degrandis
In Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow, Dominica Degrandis' identifies 5 thieves of time that prevent Information Technology Teams from getting work done.
- Too Much Work-in-Progress (WIP) - This is work that is started but not yet finished. The demand is greater than the supply. The more WIP there is the more things sit idle.
- Unknown Dependencies - Something that you were unaware of but is required before the original task can be completed. This could be software, hardware, someone’s expertise, or another task.
- Unplanned Work - Disruptions that prevent you from completing something else. These are the fires that pop up when trying to make progress on planned work. If IT deliverables are consistently late, this could be the culprit.
- Conflicting Priorities - When you're unsure about what the most important thing is. This can be when projects, support requests, remediation items, maintenance, etc. all compete.
- Neglected Work - Work that sits idle and uncompleted or only partially completed. This could be routine maintenance, those periodic reviews that are piling up, moderate and low vulnerabilities, quality improvements, a list of audit/exam findings, etc.
Degrandis makes the point that it's important to take the time to stop and identify what work IT has, how it flows through the "IT system", and determine what's preventing progress. She proposes it's important to make the work visible using a visual system (like a Kanban board), not just for the IT Team but for everyone who depends on their work. If you can't see the work, then it's hard to manage it.
I've seen IT struggle with these things and not be able to show why we need more resources or say why we don't have the capacity to do this and that. Projects tend to run behind, support isn't as responsive, things get missed, reviews aren't done, and then audit and exam findings start to show up. The important things aren’t urgent until they are. If this is the case, start with this: Gather your IT team for a book club session on 'Making Work Visible'. If the team is already overwhelmed, it might be time to consider external support. Remember, the best time to sharpen the saw is before it goes completely dull. You may want to bring in some additional help to manage regulatory requirements, the various projects, a new help desk system, or maybe even support from a Managed Service Provider (MSP).
"Never let something important become urgent." —Eliyahu Goldratt
In the rapidly evolving world of IT, standing still means falling behind. By recognizing our challenges and proactively addressing them, we can ensure our teams remain sharp, effective, and ready for what's next. Can your team take time to sharpen the saw? If not, then that might be a reverse indicator; meaning that's exactly what they need.