Time Motion Study

TMS provides unparalleled access to the real work your team performs. By moving closer to the work, you can generate world-class insights for improving performance.

Introduction

“What you don’t commit to finding out, you don’t deserve to know. What you don’t uncover, you cannot leverage.” ~ Assegid Habtewold

TMS drives the standardization of work, and the efficiency of people, equipment, and networks.

As a tool, TMS is so impactful, one program participant even told us that TMS had “added 10-15 years to my IT career.”

This manager went on to explain how, as they progressed in their career, they got farther and farther away from the work being performed on the frontline.

They enthusiastically stated that TMS helped them to become an expert again in their field of technology. The same is true for you. Embrace the power of TMS and let it work for you.

Making the complex simple

A key concept of TMS is to divide larger processes into more manageable elements.

Making the complex simple is how value is created. Rarely can you affect meaningful change by making sweeping changes across multiple work units at one time.

But the reverse is true. Changes can be vetted on a small-scale in order to test their efficacy. Such changes will be scaled enterprise-wide once their positive impact has been proven locally.

The principle of granularity dictates that we break down each production unit into its component processes and subprocesses.

We then time each component process and rearrange and optimize them as needed for maximum efficiency.

Key Benefits of TMS

TMS can be performed for any task- or process-oriented team to reveal exactly how the team is working. TMS provides the following key benefits:

  • Sets Expectations - TMS sets production standards for team output

  • Documents processes - TMS creates documentation for standardization and for the creation of job aids

  • Supports optimal timing - TMS supports calendar adherence for ICs by providing guidance on timing for process and subprocess

  • Drives short-term goals - For bottom performers (and those who study them), TMS generates and maintains goals to strive for

TMS step-by-step

1. Utilize the TMS template for recording data measurements

The TMS template is an ideal tool for this purpose. Click the link to use this resource for your own TMS.

2. Define the work unit you plan to analyze

When conducting a time-motion study, it’s essential you understand exactly what you want to analyze. You need to define your team’s work unit for the purpose of your TMS.

If you share responsibility for more than one work unit (e.g., writing test cases vs. executing test cases), then you’ll perform a TMS for each unit.

3. Divide the work unit into its processes, subprocesses, and activities

The work you perform is not a set of disconnected tasks. Rather, it is a process. Every process starts with inputs, and ends with outputs. But what happens in between?

How are the inputs modified during the core process to become outputs? Generally, the best way to start improving efficiency is to focus on the actions which occur within individual tasks.

For each process and subprocess, list every step that occurs between input and output. This may take some brainstorming on your part.

Don’t feel like you have to list every step perfectly in order off the top of your head. Sometimes, we overlook non-obvious steps in a process until discussing them among our team.

4. Calculate time per activity

To calculate how much time your IC’s spend per step of their process, you need to directly observe them execute their work, or observe them via a live or recorded screen share session.

It’s best to observe the IC via a recorded video so that they perform the task more naturally, as they do normally when you’re not around. Whether live or recorded, be like a fly on the wall.

Allow IC’s to perform their work without any interruption from you. Go as granular as you can, but never have steps longer than 60 minutes.

Record the time it takes to complete each step of the workflow. If a particular step isn’t executed on every single unit, determine its frequency for use later as a weighted average.

If your videos are longer than 15 minutes, it’s better to review them one at a time. Time each step in the video and come up with your first round of insights.

This approach helps us avoid any challenges with our own human memory. If you watch three 1-hour videos and then try to remember all the differences, you’re going to have a very difficult time.

6. Extrapolate weekly time per activity

Once we’ve measured our actual times, we compare them to our weekly standard in order to determine whether our performance is on track, or off.

7. Determine unit goals

Determine the unit goal for your team by dividing the ‘pure’ working minutes by the number of minutes one unit requires.

8. Calculate unit costs

Determine your TMS cost/unit goal by incorporating your IC hourly cost.

Benchmarking winners and losers

Testing is about tracking winners and losers. We can’t make business decisions based on conjecture or hypothesis. Rather, we make data-driven decisions based on what actually works.

TMS highlights differences between top and bottom performers to help determine how top performers output higher quality, and to provide coaching opportunities to low performers.

You’ll want to analyze no less than three units of work from your top performer, and at least one unit from your bottom performer.

In this way, your team can see, track, and emulate the behaviors of the top performers, while avoiding the behaviors of bottom performers.

What’s the next step for your team?

While TMS tells you how your team is performing today in its current state, it’s not going to take you much farther than that.

The next tool on your tool belt for this is ZBT. In that exercise you’ll discover ways to at least double what your team is currently capable of.

As your team improves, you’ll move away from your TMS, toward your ZBT.

Conclusion

TMS provides you unparalleled access to the real work your team is performing. By moving closer to the work, you generate world-class insights for improving performance.

This process allows you to learn both the good and bad practices in the team, and to bring up bottom performers to the top performer's level.

Ultimately, TMS helps quality-focused enterprises drive efficiency and to generate deep insights for continuous improvement.

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