Three working law slogans

Since you clicked in to read this article, it shows that you may be in such a state now: busy as a bee every day, but things can never be finished, and unfinished things snowball, which seems endless. Then I suggest you learn about it and try the "three-step work method".

The "three-step working method" mentioned by the author comes from a book called "Phoenix Project-Legend of ——IT Operation and Maintenance".

The protagonist in the book took over the operation and maintenance department of a company. Before the department took over, there was chaos: various maintenance changes of IT systems were flying all over the sky; The system is unstable and there are often unexplained problems; Moreover, there is also an IT project called Project Phoenix, which still fails even if it works overtime all night. Later, the hero met a master like sweeping monk. With the help of his mysterious "three-step working method" concept, the department has taken on a new look. It not only doubled the efficiency, but also successfully solved the Phoenix project. Therefore, the hero helped the company beat its competitors in one fell swoop and reached the peak of its life.

Although the book tells the story of an IT department, the author thinks that the "three-step working method" is more like an idea or train of thought, which is also applicable to personal circumstances. Therefore, in the next article, the author will explain more about the application of "three-step work method" in personal work.

Having said that, what exactly is the "three-step working method"?

The definition in the book is:

"The first working method helps us to understand how to establish a rapid workflow when the work is transferred from the development department to the IT operation and maintenance department. The second working method tells us how to shorten and enlarge the feedback loop, so as to solve the quality problem at the source and avoid rework. The third working method tells us how to build a culture, which can not only encourage exploration and learn from failure, but also understand that repeated practice is a prerequisite for mastering work "(P79-80).

There are some difficult words, so the author simplifies them to:

To avoid endless things, the first thing to do is to design a set of fast and efficient work routines (workflow) for yourself. As emphasized in the book, "our goal is to improve the productivity of the whole system, not only to increase the number of tasks completed" (P 186), but also to improve the personal work efficiency.

The book spends a lot of space on how to use the idea of the first work method to improve the work routine. Not only many scene problems are described, but also corresponding solutions are put forward. The author briefly summarizes the following points:

The book puts forward a constraint theory: "Any improvement made anywhere outside the bottleneck is an illusion". "Any improvement made after the bottleneck is futile, because we can only wait for the bottleneck to send the work. Any improvement made before the bottleneck appears will only lead to more inventory accumulation at the bottleneck "(P78).

The book takes a production workshop as an example: "Work should not be arranged according to the efficiency of the first workstation, but according to the speed at which bottleneck resources can complete the work" (P78).

Obviously, finding out the bottleneck in the current workflow is the first step to establish an efficient work routine.

Here, the author asks readers to think about their own situation: in our own work or study process, there are always endless things to do. Is there such a link in our work as a bottleneck?

Maybe everyone's situation is different. Take the author himself as an example: the author analyzes that the bottleneck of his work is that he can't concentrate every day and can't work efficiently in a short time. Although the time is short, the author always wants to put all kinds of important, complicated and troublesome work in this time period.

After finding the bottleneck (also called constraint point in the book), how to optimize it next?

Optimization 1: Make full use of bottlenecks (constraint points)

"Make sure the constraint points don't waste more time. Never let the constraint point accommodate other resources to wait, but focus on the task with the highest priority in the it operation and maintenance department "(P 152).

To put it bluntly, it is to ensure the efficiency of constraint points. Or my own example: I think my constraint point is 10 am to 12 am, because this time period is the most efficient. In order to make full use of these two hours, the author will try his best to shield things that have nothing to do with work. For example, wear headphones to prevent the sound of the office from disturbing me; Mute the phone and put it far away from me; If possible, try not to arrange a meeting at this time. I just want to concentrate on this precious period of time, so as to get rid of more things.

Optimization 2: "Put constraint points in a secondary position" (P 153)

It is easy to understand, that is, let your bottleneck gradually stop becoming a bottleneck.

For example, as I said before, 2 hours in the morning is my bottleneck. In order to make this bottleneck no longer a bottleneck, I need to find another efficient time period. Later, self-observation found that from 3 pm to 5 pm, although the concentration was not as good as that in the morning, it was also very effective. In this way, after the work is diverted, the traffic in the bottleneck period in the morning is shared.

At this point, finding the bottleneck and optimizing it can effectively increase the daily work flow. However, this is still a temporary solution. Because there are still many things to do. The next method, the author will explain why things will be done more and more.

The book divides the work of IT maintenance department and lists four types of IT operation and maintenance work: business projects, IT operation and maintenance projects, changes and unplanned work. In order to facilitate the discussion, the author jumps out of the framework of operation and maintenance and only divides the work into planned work and unplanned work (or fire fighting work).

The author believes that in personal work, planned work is foreseeable work, because it is foreseeable, so we can make work plans for these work. Unplanned work is unexpected or unexpected work ("fire fighting" work), because it is unpredictable, so we often ignore this kind of unplanned work. The protagonist in the book also neglected the unplanned work at first, and then they realized that "we only discussed half of the work carried out by the IT operation and maintenance department" (P 180).

Unplanned work is not only easy to be ignored, but also "unplanned work is not free." Because the price of unplanned work is to sacrifice the planned work. "(P 183) There is only so much time. If you do unplanned work, you will naturally have no time to do planned work.

"Before accepting the job, we don't analyze the work ability and job requirements in any form. In other words, we are always rushing to work and have to take shortcuts, which means that more fragile applications appear in the production process. This means that there will be more unplanned work and fire fighting work in the future. Therefore, we have been spinning in the same place. " (P 182) There is less and less time for planning work, so if we hurry, there will be more unplanned work.

Seeing this, readers, do you feel awake? At least I feel this way when I see it here:

Some people do things slowly and easily, and they do it well.

Some people work very hard, more tired than dogs, and things are not done well.

It turned out to be a vicious circle caused by unplanned work.

"Unplanned work will make you lose the ability to carry out planned work, so you must eliminate unplanned work at all costs. Murphy's Law does exist, so there will always be unplanned work, but you must deal with them efficiently "(P 152).

There will always be unplanned work, but we need to try our best to reduce it and deal with it efficiently, especially those unplanned work caused by rushing to work. Then, the latter method will reduce or eliminate haste from the source of work.

"We need to do more than just better prioritize. I already know what the point is. While keeping everything running normally "(P 185).

It is important to note that priority and important things are not the same concept. We should find out the priorities among the important things.

So, how to find the priority among equally important tasks?

"You are actually building a resource list. The bill of materials and the list of required work centers and processes. Once you have these, plus the work order and your resources, you can finally understand what your capacity and demand are. This will let you finally understand whether you can accept a new job and make arrangements for it. " (P 199)

To understand the priorities, we must first analyze the work. After the analysis is clear, the work that does not need constraints (bottlenecks) is definitely a priority. Don't do or postpone projects that can't improve work efficiency (because you are already busy, don't make it worse)

Another obvious principle is not to do unimportant things. However, everyone knows the truth, and not everyone can do it in practice. For example, everyone in the book who asks the IT operation and maintenance department to do this and that thinks that their own business is very important and asks the IT operation and maintenance department to solve it immediately, but in fact?

The protagonist later "you must really understand the business system it participates in" in order to clearly understand this work and find out its importance and priority.

In reality, busy people, please think for yourself, how many things are really that important?

The author emphasizes here again that the unimportant thing is not not not to do it, but to slow down when the work is already full and overloaded.

There is an additional benefit of analysis: when you analyze the work, whether it is the resources needed or anything else, as long as you analyze it carefully enough. You will find that some jobs can actually be "outsourced" to others, or tools can be used to improve efficiency. It is mentioned in the book that many jobs are automatically executed by computers without manual processing after they are formed into automatic documents.

It is mentioned in the book that the protagonist needs to learn from the manufacturing department: "They arrange and supervise all the production processes to ensure that they can meet the needs of customers. When accepting orders, they will confirm that each required work center has sufficient production capacity and necessary input to speed up the work progress when necessary. They work with sales managers and factory managers to arrange production plans, so they can fulfill their commitments. " (P2 18)

Please think back to yourself. When you started doing something, did you ever think about whether we have enough time and energy to do it at this stage?

"People in your business department are confused by the project and constantly undertake new projects, but they don't have any hope of success. Why? Because you have no idea what your actual working ability is. " (P 184)

Time is limited. Even the most powerful people only have 24 hours a day. People's energy is even more limited, and ordinary people only have a few hours to work effectively every day.

Only by fully understanding your working ability can you have the basis to say no to some things that need to be done.

If you can't say "no", things will only get more and more, and there will be more unplanned things.

The first working method requires us to establish a fast and efficient working procedure. "Method 1 Find and optimize bottlenecks" is to improve the current workflow. "Method 2 Understanding Unplanned Work" analyzes why things are becoming more and more principled. "Method 3: Analyze the work to find out the priority" and "Method 4: Know your own ability" are the sources of controlling the work from two aspects: work and personal.

If we say, the first working method is to start changing and establish working routines. Then the second working method is to review the newly established working routine, and find unreasonable places to improve immediately.

The review and improvement scheme of IT operation and maintenance department in the book is "establishing supervision mechanism" and "workflow visualization". The supervision mechanism is to find problems. Visualization is to find problems better and easier.

For individuals, neither of the above methods seems to be very useful. The author adopts the method of "three provinces in Japan and three provinces in body" left by ancient ancestors. Think about this day before going to bed every night. The author often introspects the following contents: What am I doing in the best period of my energy every day? Do these things have to be done now? Did you get fucked? Wait a minute. Of course, besides these, you can also review anything you think is useful, accumulated and improved during the day.

Cycle the first working method and the second working method, improve, review, improve again, review again, improve again ... From then on, the virtuous circle is getting better and better.

For enterprises, it is to form a culture:

"We need to build a culture that emphasizes the values of taking risks and learning from failures, and the necessity of achieving perfection through repeated practice" (P3 14).

For individuals, it is to form habits.

If you are too busy, but you still can't finish things. You can do this in the following ways:

After establishing the routine of efficient work, we often review and improve the routine, and finally continue to form habits and a virtuous circle.

In fact, the book expounds how to manage the workflow of modern enterprises in the form of novels.

The author borrows the method in the book and actually draws a map of how individuals manage their time.

The reason why the author can do this is because the philosophy of "three-step working method" really tells the law of doing good things: constantly establishing, feeding back and improving to achieve a virtuous circle can be described as "strategy"; Optimizing bottlenecks, understanding unplanned work, analyzing work and knowing yourself can also be used as practical methods to improve efficiency, which can be described as "tactics".