“Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss
Human ability – when paired with practice, intent, and intelligence – generates motive power to the modern concept of productivity. This concept has emerged as an important yardstick in civilizational processes – such as industrial growth, commercial expansion, and the utility of the average employee in white and blue-collar organizations. Productivity also remains a measure of the concept of return on investment (ROI), as also the utilization of available resources; readers may view productivity as a tool that drives the performance of organizations, and operates as an enabler of competitive advantage. In the bigger picture, an analysis of productivity could yield insights into the nature of labor markets, the essential role of human capital in such markets, and their role in driving the growth of national economies. Thus, putting together or designing the productivity tracking flowchart as part of initiatives to assess the benefits stemming from such ventures, makes a lot of business sense.
- A Resource-driven Perspective
Organizations must invest in techniques to measures productivity on a broad, objective scale. This stance allows the assessment of business efficiency aligned to specific factors, such as allocated resources and yield output. A productivity tracking flowchart, therefore, could take shape through multiple layers that include timelines, the number of employees, the quanta of work completed, targets etched for individuals and groups of employees, the impact of employee turnover, training programs, etc. Readers may view this image as an interesting demonstration of the power of the human intellect to track multiple variables on a single plane. In addition, such flowcharts could enable the modern organization to develop sets of information on employee productivity over periods. The information issuing from the connected image could also aid research into the various aspects of productive behavior when viewed in different contexts.
- Role in Competitive Strategy
The quality of commercial (or industrial) strategies performs a key role in driving success in modern organizations. Further, it would help to deploy an expansive version of the productivity tracking flowchart as an information-rich instrument that guides the development of a firm’s (business or competitive) strategy. For instance, a white-collar firm’s intent on pursuing new clients could invest in methods to boost productivity on a large scale. This could entail the development of new work practices that spur the individual productivity of employees, offering training packages that up-skill the professional abilities of employees, fresh thinking on team structures, etc. These inputs bear the significant potential to boost the productivity of the contemporary firm. Thus, creators could etch the various outlines of these inputs within the spaces of productivity tracking flowchart.
- Remote Workers
Remote workers may consider participating in the development of information that animates the productivity tracking flowchart. In this context, organizations could invest in online diagrams that allow remote workers to provide inputs into the design of mechanisms that underlie such charts. Readers may note this approach enables organizations to develop comprehensive tracking mechanisms, thereby generating multiple lines of information on the productivity of employees. Subsequently, organizations may apply digital analytics to these charts as a means to derive insights from information. The productivity tracking flowchart could feature different techniques that measure productivity on macro and micro scales. This stance can enhance the idea of the modern organization while allowing smarter work strategies to evolve from traditional methods.
- Tracking the Performance of Individuals
The individual employee could build versions of the productivity tracking flowchart as a means to gain insight into the use of their time spent at the workplace. In this instance, it would help to envisage a model diagram that “tracks work hours across projects, calculates billable hours and labor costs, tracks attendance and breaks, time off, and project progress, budgets, etc.” Readers may view these aspects as the building blocks of productivity; the information emanating from these charts (when compiled over weeks and months) could guide insights into the nature of human engagement in the modern workplace. Further, individual employees may utilize this information to calibrate their activities in the workplace, thereby driving productivity on a higher arc. Organizations, on their part, could guide the design and content of these diagrams through the agency of external experts.
- Boosting Process Optimization
Observers have noted that “analyzing productivity and engagement trends provides opportunities to optimize work processes and make teams more productive.” Thus, this statement is a significant insight that should find incorporation in the development of productivity tracking flowchart. For instance, employees working on multiple projects could populate the flowchart with productivity numbers; subsequently, supervisors could review these diagrams to locate the scope for optimizing work processes in multiple projects. Such actions can empower the average employee to generate higher levels of return on investment, thereby allowing the organization to register greater progress toward quality outcomes. When viewed from various perspectives, the productivity tracking flowchart could also provide impetus to refine the expanse of work processes across teams and projects.
- Managing the Sub-Par
Custom-designed solutions could represent a particular output that emanates from a productivity tracking flowchart. Readers may view this technique as a device that helps managers/supervisors to boost the sub-par performance of certain employees. For instance, managers may review productivity metrics of all employees, and allocate the weak performers to projects marked by lower levels of complexity. This solution could help organizations take cognizance of the true caliber of all employees, and utilize this information in future projects. Each instance of a custom-designed technique could emerge as part of a broad method that helps steer the performance of organizations. In addition, separate sections of flow-based diagrams could encourage diversity in the structures and stances ingrained in these solutions.
- Forecasting the Future
The utility of productivity tracking flowchart extends to creating forecasts for organizational purposes; this observation is especially relevant because “with historical data of how much time was required for projects, organizations can better estimate the amount of labor and costs for future projects.” Readers may develop a narrative based on this instance, wherein organizations use productivity data to vet the efficacy of work processes and the myriad techniques deployed to steer progress on work projects. Variations in the flows etched within connected diagrams could lead to the development of various models of tracking productive use of company time. Sets of forecasts could be tallied with actual outcomes, thereby reinforcing organizational ability to design the outlines of efficient strategies. In this scenario, the flowchart serves as a sub-module of analytics packages designed to help organizations maximize their returns on investments.
- In Conclusion
A close reading of these lines can enrich and guide the direction and efficacy of a productivity tracking flowchart. It would help to work towards expanding the applications of flowcharts (and allied diagrams) in tracking productivity metrics in a variety of contemporary contexts. Readers must bear in mind that the connected diagram can serve as an instrument of exploration, ideation in pursuit of improving the performance of modern organizations. This stance could be amalgamated with strategies that hinge on exploring the nuances of newer methods of performance enhancement of human capital. The resulting images could take shape as complex visual entities populated with multiple points, connections, layers, and displays that encase potential outcomes. In enabling such scenarios, the flowchart operates as a force multiplier that expands the dynamics of modern organizations.
