Chopping Trees (Efficiency vs Effectiveness)

Every now and then you get in these discussions concerning efficiency versus effectiveness. Usually following an example where on the basis of efficiency a decision has been made that isn't effective.
Common response to this observation is:
"Aren't they the same?"
No! No! No!

Efficiency != effectiveness

Efficiency is not equal to effectiveness. In many situations choices based on efficiency can lead to very ineffective solutions.

So what is the difference? Let me give you an example.
Given a group of people stranded in the middle of a jungle. A manager steering on efficiency concentrates on how fast these people can chop their way through the jungle to get out of there. Steering on effectiveness changes the focus to making sure they group moves in the right direction.

This is further illustrated in the definitions on the balancedscorecard.org (which contains many government definitions of this terminology):

Effectiveness: (a) Degree to which an activity or initiative is successful in achieving a specified goal; (b) degree to which activities of a unit achieve the unit's mission or goal.

Efficiency: (a) Degree of capability or productivity of a process, such as the number of cases closed per year; (b) tasks accomplished per unit cost.

Efficiency is the number of chopped trees per hour and effectiveness is the degree at which you attain your goal: how fast you leave the jungle.

So, why bother?

As mentioned at the start of this article we sometimes make decisions based on the wrong reason: efficiency.
In many places we have been taught that efficiency is a good thing and we have even implemented this on a large scale (factories, work places). Doing nothing at work is (by most people) frowned upon. An employee who is asked to do nothing at work will start wondering about his job security. Why? Well, we believe everybody needs to do his job, so you have to do stuff.
To be honest I prefer an effective bouncer over an efficient bouncer anytime. Imagine a bouncer who's trying to be as efficient as he can be. He would be throwing people out of the club constantly, which would at some point ruin the business. An effective bouncer is somebody who has nothing to do, meaning the club is safe and there is no trouble.

I don't find myself in the middle of the jungle very often or being thrown out by a bouncer. How does this apply to you average work environment?

Here are just two examples of the many I've encountered in real life:
*) Trying to schedule a training course for 100 people. Based on efficiency the company tried to get the trainer to do bigger classes so he needed less time to teach. Turned out it was more effective to train 13 course for approximately 8 students that it was to try and teach only 5 classes of 20 people. The difference was facility. The big rooms were rare and hard to book and therefor the time it took to train all staff was longer.

*) A company was being controlled on the basis of efficiency, so everybody had to be utilized as much as possible. This in itself is not really a bad thing as long as you understand and accept the consequences. When the company was asked for a major deal they were unable to respond to this because of the utilization and the resulting loss of responsiveness, everybody was just fully booked to the max. Increasing efficiency may lower effectiveness due to loss of responsiveness.

As a final note: I'm not saying that efficiency is bad. Efficiency as a single goal is a bad thing. If used properly it is possible to increase effectiveness by increasing efficiency. Just remember you might get more effective by lowering efficiency in some places. ;)

Dare devils needed - Can risk save your project?

We are being brought up with the idea that risk is bad. That the best way to do things is playing it safe. "Don't go there, you could fall". "Put a coat on, you could catch a cold." "Drive safely"
I've heard these things a lot (from my mom) when I was a kid and actually she still tells me stuff like this, but no longer under the illusion that I'll listen.

Our society is very much like my mom in that it tries to reduce risks. Many laws have been passed to reduce the many risks of life. Unemployment funds, traffic laws, labor laws are all intended to keep us, lowly peons, away from harm.
And this behavior has made us dumb. Because of these laws we are no longer feeling responsible. And this happens at a subconcious level.

I'll prove it. Allow me to take you on a mental journey.
In 10 years Ovlov (or insert your own personal favorite brand) will have developed a perfect car. Driving this car is a real pleasure, the gears shift semi-automatically, acceleration is exhilirating and breaking power tremendous. Best of all, the car is perfectly safe. Even in a full head-on crash you will walk away without as much as a scratch.

Now imagine the same car, with the same driving experience, but with one serious flaw. The steering wheel rod may break in a full head-on collision killing the driver in an instant.

Will your driving style be different now that you know of the flaw? Ofcourse it will. By taking away the risk you feel safer and therefore driving far less responsible towards others who may not be in a car.

Remove all airbags, head-rests, ESP and ABS from the vehicles and people drive more cautiously.

So reducing risk causes more serious problems, that wouldn't exist otherwise. Reducing the risk is not the same as eliminating the dangers.
My point is that instead of reducing risk and 'managing' it, we should confront and utilize it.

Managing risks means making sure it's in everybodies face all the time!
Yes, we should try to limit the consequences if we can. Being aware of the risks even without further action helps staying away from them.

We must solicit more risk in a project. Every risk we find is a potential benefit. It can inspire us and allows (or even better forces) us to be creative. Take away the risk and we become reckless.

Don't take away risk for it is an excellent motivator.

Don't be shy about your privates

Let's rid Java of unnecessary plumping code. I say free your privates, let them be public.
I fail to see the reason why I should add getter and setter methods to a class just to access a private variable. 99.9% of the time getters and setters are only used for data transfer between what the client of the object has and the variables inside the object.

Benefits:

• Less code. A class with 5 member variables no longer needs 10 methods to support data access.
• Clearer code. Statements to acces the data become shorter and actually tell more.
  

What would you prefer, System.out.println() or System.getSystem().getOut().println()?

How to unpresent your case

Why are people so good at wasting time in meetings and presentations? Or to put it more specifically: why do I have the feeling I have better ways to spend my time than in meetings and presentations.
Normally I catch myself zoning out after approx. 45-50 minutes in a meeting or presentation. Ofcourse there are ways to make sure that time is shortened.

Here's a top 10 list of things a presenter can do to lose his audience:

1. Bad time management
   There are two strategies here:
   
   • make sure to spend 25% of your time presenting your company and its range of products (unrelated to the presentation), 30% introduce yourself and your curriculum and another 30% on discussing a specific detail with one of the listeners.
     That should leave you with only 15% of your time for the real presentation. You are bound to overrun your time by a very large margin.
   • Try to break the world record most slides per minute, while you estimated to have a new slide every three minutes. This way you can do 15 1-hour presentations in under 60 minutes.
   Make sure that if you are running late start talking faster and faster.
   
2. Talk softly
   Try to speak just above whisper level. You know you are at the right level, when people at the back row are no longer facing you directly, but with either of their ears trying to catch at least a hint of what you're saying.
3. Insult audience
   Try to include images in your presentation that emphasize stereotypes: the scruffy, longhaired programmers, slick managers with $$ in their eyes.
   
4. Insecure
   Certain words are perfect at projecting insecurity while speaking clearly. Words /sentences like: perhaps, maybe, I think, could be, should.
   Also when answering questions try to repeat the exact same phrase you used during the presentation or give an answer that has nothing to do with the question and keep repeating that answer.
5. No eye contact
   Whatever you do, don't look into the audience. Avoid eye contact at all costs. Things to do here are stare at the ceiling or look at your shoes and wonder how long ago you have had them shined.
   If this is too hard and you really need a face to talk to, select somebody you fancy (preferably to the side of you) and speak only in his / her direction.
6. Co-workers weird faces
   If you have co-workers present during your presentation ask for their assistence. Things they can do is sit uninterested and make funny faces when (not if) you make mistakes.
   
7. Read slides
   Read the slides as they roll by and try to add as little as possible. A nice trick is to rephrase each bullit point in two different ways.
   
8. Skip slides
   Skip slides that are important to the audience, but reference them in the presentation so they know they are missing parts of the story.
9. Don't prepare
   Spend no time on the slides, your audience or the intended topic. There is no better way to play dumb than when you really don't know. Should you be so unfortunate that you actually know what you're talking about, ask somebody you don't know to reshuffle the slides and the bullit points. Success guaranteed!
   

Seriously, each of these things can happen and by itself can be compensated in some way, but hitting 4 or 5 of these are devastating.

Presenters, please, if you have something to say, say it quick and clear.