Before Work Measurement efficiency measures are implemented all activities deemed to be wasteful must be removed. It doesn’t make sense to make wasteful activities more efficient. In bureaucratic organizations restructuring may need to be done in the form of removing one or two extraneous layers of management. Organizations with large budgets dependent on schedules require the “Cost and Schedule” approach. An example is the State Highway Department. More people oriented organizations are better served by the “Work Improvement Team” approach. See Article 12. “Which Approach to use in State Government ‘Cost and Schedule’ or ‘Work Improvement Teams’“?

Large established bureaucracies are the most difficult for installing work measurement and are usually hostile to outside influences. This type of organization has the capacity to protect itself from outside pressures to reform even though it has stated goals of public service. Senior management must be persuaded to support the implementation of either the “Cost and Schedule” or the “Work Improvement Team” method.

In the Cost and Schedule method all processes are time-studied by analysts unnecessary activities are eliminated and employees are retrained to do the revised set of processes. Staffing is adjusted and a monitoring and reporting system is then installed which provides input to the budgeting system. See Article 7. “Organizational Reporting and Budget Control Systems” and Article 5. “Government Bureaucracies and Document Turn-Around Time”.
WITs may also be installed in a bureaucratic situation where schedules are not required. See Article 1. “Reforming Business and Government Bureaucracies”.

I recommend a structured two step approach for people oriented organizations those that are not dependent on schedules and generally serve the public at large. An example would be Family Services. In Step One I recommend that Japanese management practices currently, being used successfully in American businesses be implemented. The method is sometimes called “Total Quality Management“. It consists in the implementation and training of “Work Improvement Teams (WITs)” (They are also called Quality Circles and by other names). This is a team effort by employees to solve job-related problems and make improvements to the work processes. The WIT implementation should initially be done in a test environment with a selected organization that has a known problem. For information on how to implement them see Article 8. “Work Place Continuous Improvement” and Article 11. “Adaptation of Manufacturing Quality Improvement Techniques to Achieve Efficient Government “.

Step Two is uniquely my own recommendation for using the process flow charts developed by the WITs for staffing and budgeting purposes. If the WITs are trained to develop detailed process flow charts they can be adapted and used for staffing and budgeting. WITs should concentrate on the development and analysis (elimination of unnecessary processes) using the process flow chart as a tool. This achieves the largest payoff because this is where the resources are being expended. Process flow charts depict manual processes, which may also show computer input and computer output, (reports). For our purposes in office work each process should not be more than 15 minutes in length. If the current process flow chart does not reflect the minimum time length, the WIT should be asked to redo their process flow chart to incorporate the short time length. The minimum time for a process in a process flow chart will depend on the processes being done and how they vary. If a process flow chart has no processes that are shorter than an hour then the minimum process time is one hour. In some process flow charts processes may depict days or months of work these have little value to the WIT or anyone else within the organization but may be useful for orienting others on how the organization works.

The reason for Step two is that a detailed analysis of the workings of the state government is necessary to achieve the desired level of efficiency. In the Cost and Schedule method this is normally done by outside consultants doing time-studies or by analysts who interview employees and construct detailed process flow charts. The cost of providing enough analysts to do this is usually prohibitive. But if the process flow charts are done by WITs they have “bought in” on the method and they don’t have to be retrained to do the revised job. Only a few budget analysts are needed to interpret the WITs’ process flow charts for the man hours required, determine staffing and provide input to the budgeting system.