[boothby]

> Efficiency is about sitting down and analyzing your tasks holistically and doing min-maxing...

Accurate analysis depends on accurate data. Which is why some people I know are required to account for their work activities in 7-minute increments, have frequent and detailed meetings to account for progress, project planning, etc.

Actually, doing that analysis has a cost that must be discounted from any perceived gains of efficiency, to be truly efficient. One learns to tolerate some waste to avoid the ultimate time-suck.

To say nothing of maintence and sustainability -- if you're always sprinting, you're doomed to fall.

[Sevii]

For factory optimization they didn't ask people to track their hours at 7 minute intervals. They put a camera on them and analyzed what they did over an entire shift. Then they redesign the factory line to optimize things. Having people manually track time has far more overhead and is less accurate in general. In practice I've never seen a software org take estimates or time tracking seriously beyond "Track your hours in 15 min increments against tickets".

[hinkley]

I will have this written on my gravestone if Edward Tufte doesn’t beat me to it:

Charts are for asking questions, not answering them.

That analysis phase can be done brilliantly, or disastrously. It’s down to whose hand is on the rudder.

[7952]

7.5 would be nicer as it fits into sixty minutes!

[hinkley]

Boeing does 6 minutes, which means that it’s impossible to have a 45 minute meeting. My coworkers decided that if the meeting went over its .8 hours and if we cleared out on time or earlier that it’s .7 hours.

I don’t know why you would do 7. That doesn’t divide into 60 at all. Nor 480.