Overview:

improving User Desktop Productivity +UDP ™

The concept of being more efficient in the way we perform our daily tasks is not new.  People continually strive to perform their tasks to the best of their ability.  To achieve ones daily tasks, some people innovate, explore and research all the alternatives to ascertain the most efficient approach to any problem.

It does not matter whether we are talking about everyday survival, studying for exams, performing tasks on a production line, or operating a computer: improving productivity is a goal that provides us with:

more leisure time,

the skill to produce more goods and services for our employer,

the aptitude to produce more and/or better work on a computer because we save time every day.

We can be more productive by moving and clicking our mouse less and learn to input the same words, characters and sentences with the minimum number of keystrokes.  We can develop and implement many strategies to save time.

People learn from their peers.  If one contestant (in figure skating at the Olympics) performs two sequential triple-triple jumping combinations, then everyone else will strive to perform it also.  However, it takes only one experimenter to prove what is possible.

The same applies to learning in general and computers in particular.  Some people experiment to find out what is possible as well as the most efficient way to perform, even the simplest and repetitious of tasks, and then pass that information to others.

Since using text processors for the first time over 30 years ago, our founder has been interested in finding the most efficient way to use all types of office technology.  For the past 5 years, he has been building up a library of ideas, shortcuts strategies and preferences that can assist the computer user substantially improve efficiency.  In 2000 he conducted experiments and proved the average time taken to move and click the mouse was between ¾ and 1½ seconds and that by modifying a few basic strategies, users can minimise their mouse movement and clicks by a minimum of 30% and by as much as 60%.  This is especially true of the time spent giving basic instructions to open and close files and programs, format files, copy and paste, print and navigate the network.  These, and many of the other frequently used functions take time but we do not fully understand HOW MUCH time we spend performing these basic tasks, often hundreds of times every week.  Performing theses functions in ONE mouse movement and click rather than two, three or four, can provide substantial time savings.  By using ‘spyware’ programs that track every action of a computer user, we can easily see the number and amount of mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes performed every hour.  Analysis is then easy to ascertain what percentage of time can be saved in a day by implementing +UDP concepts.

When the user adds the health advantages of being more efficient; all benefit.  Less wrist movement, means less chance of wrist strain and suffering Repetitive Strain Injury - RSI, and less time in front of the computer screen, so reduced possibility of eye strain.  We also encourage users to manage their system ‘by exception’ which requires less decision making to perform the standard tasks.  This helps reduce the mental stress when we are required to finalise reports and information, in a time critical situation.

These health advantages, when added to the time saved, means that

every computer user can ‘work smarter’ and be more productively every day.

Peter.Thomas@improvingUDP.com                                                           www.improvingUDP.com

Discussion Paper: (pdf version)

your next computer upgrade – 2012?

improving User Desktop Productivity: +UDP

WHAT IS IT?

Probable Productivity Gain:  between 5% and 12%

Can I justify a hardware upgrade (new computer) to my boss?

IF, thirteen years ago, we had been senior enough, or lucky enough, to have a computer on our desk, it could have looked like this:

1995 System:      Intel Pentium Processor 486:             Speed (200 MHz: slow!)

                              Hard Disk:                                             500 MB (small)

                              Memory:                                                16 MB (memory is expensive!)

                              Microsoft Windows:                            Version 3.1.1

                              Microsoft Word for Windows            Word Version 4

                              Lotus 1-2-3 (for spreadsheets)

                              Connection to a Server:                       Maybe

                              Connection to the Internet:               Unlikely!

                              Email:                                                     What is that?

At the time we thought we had a super fast system, and we would wait patiently for anything from 5 seconds to 7 seconds for our main programs to load.  Try to run more than two programs simultaneously and the system may crash!  ‘Ugh!!! – another reboot, for the fourth time today!’  But this was ‘state of the art’, computing and we knew no better.

Computing has certainly come a long way – in fact you have probably experienced three hardware upgrades since then, and your Office present systems may well look like this:

2008 System:      Dual Intel Pentium Processor:            Speed (4 MHz: very fast!)

                              Hard Disk: 160 GIG                             Do I really need all that space?

                              Memory: 1 GIG                                     Programs open in 0.75 seconds.

                              Microsoft Windows: Vista                  Rarely (if ever) crashes.

                              Microsoft Office 2007:                      Are users of this latest version as productive as with Office 2003?

                                                       Word

                                                       Excel (replaced Lotus 1-2-3 in 1998)

                                                       Powerpoint

                                                       Data Base

                              Connection to a Server:                       Definitely        Sometimes Fast

                              Connection to the Internet:               But of Course!  Rarely Fast

                              Email: I cannot do my job without this (demanding) program?

So why can’t I have new computer?

Question:  Is there any other way to improve office efficiency?

Sure, we can continue to upgrade our hardware – the box – but why?  Is 0.75 seconds to load our major programs not fast enough?  Will we increase our productivity greatly if it takes us only 0.5 seconds to load our programs?

[Savings: 0.25 seconds times 100 programs a day = saving of 25 seconds a day!]

Connection to the Server and Internet is NOT restricted by the speed of the desktop.  In fact, IF the IT Department could make the Server and Internet connections 10 times faster, then the machine above could handle this increase of speed at a cost of about US$30.00, with an upgrade time of about 10 minutes per desktop – hardly any reason to change the whole machine! 

[1 GIG Bit Network technology for all versus present 100 M Bit technology.]

Is Microsoft, in the next few years, going to release any significant changes to their operating software, (Windows - Vista) or their latest version of Office (2007) that will require a faster system?  They say that ‘whatever Intel gives – by creating faster processors – Microsoft takes away’, by creating bigger programs with more function that is unused by 95% of the Office Users!  So why would anyone want to upgrade for any other reason apart from the fact that the hardware was wearing out and needs replacing?  Your next replacement can be delayed and scheduled every 6 – 8 years, rather than the 3 year cycle we have been experiencing during the last 10 years?

So have we reached to point of no return?  Let us look at the Law of Diminishing Returns.  Do we spend US$800 - US$1,000 (or more) to upgrade our desktop system every three years as we have in the past, to save 25 seconds a day?  Surely not!  Realistically, if the productivity gain is only in the region of 0.3%, it is more likely that we will let our systems run for at least six years before we consider replacement.  This will please our Accountants, as they have seen IT expenses over the past decade soar.

[Let us be generous and say we save 1 minute a day

divided by five hours average usage per day.]

If we really want to improve productivity in the Office,

we should look at the major constraining factor: the computer user!

Ask any user whether they are productive, and they will say ‘Of course, I use a computer!’ but when you look carefully at HOW users operate their systems and HOW they instruct them to find and open, files and programs, save data, print and format, you will find that 90% of users take at least twice as long as they need to perform all these actions, and all the other repetitive functions.

The (desktop) User is in fact the crucial factor that is now on the critical path to improve office efficiency.  But it is not in the best interests of the billion dollar computer hardware and software industry to make such a blasphemous statement.

‘OK – I hear you – we will teach our users more skills, and bore them to death teaching them functions that they will hardly ever use.’  When we look around the internet we see hundreds or websites and courses to teach people about the function of their computer programs, but almost none to show users an easier more efficient way to perform the majority of the standard tasks and functions they action hundred of times every week.

Tests conducted on over 1,000 users have shown that most people (in excess of 85% of users) can save a minimum of 10 minutes and often as much as 45 minutes a day, by working smarter.  They can learn how to install shortcuts, change options and preferences and develop new strategies so that their computer can be taught to work the way they work, not just be configured or set up the ‘basic way’ that is the IT or Microsoft default.

And this is where the problem lies.  How do you say to people who have been using the same programs for the past 5 years (or longer) that they have wasted three months of their life on unnecessary clicks, unnecessary keystrokes, unnecessary mouse movement (maybe as much as 30 kilometers) and unnecessary decision making to action their systems?  And are they going to repeat all these futile and unnecessary actions again over the next five years, and waste another three months?

Help is at hand for the business community if they invest

a small amount in productivity education for their staff?

When we question office staff on their knowledge of the top one hundred productivity tips, over 80% of these basic ideas are unknown to users, and of the 20% they may know, they even don’t use half of these, because no one has ever taken to time to analyse and explain the real benefits to the user.  ‘Computer competency’ is a requirement for most jobs today.  When questioned when users last attended a ‘Word’ course, the answer is often ‘Never – after all I have been using these programs for many years, so I know how to use Word!’  We even contend that the knowledge of function is even decreasing in some offices, and user pride reduces performance still further as people are too embarrassed to even say to colleagues: ‘How did you do that?’

Talk to senior office management about improving user productivity, and they often won’t discuss staff computer productivity, because often they are not prepared to admit their own lack of knowledge, so they play pass the monkey, and have you speak to the IT Department.

Does the IT group spend much time using the Microsoft Office programs,

and what is their interest in improving productivity for the average user?

IT Departments are primarily concerned with making sure that desktop hardware and software works for their users (uptime), that user connectivity to the Server and the Internet is functioning in excess of 99%.  Then they focus on the following critical issues: controlling back up, security, viruses and email performance and usability.  User productivity does not often make the top ten items on the IT Management ‘to do list’, and they often confuse user uptime with the issue of teaching users even some basic productivity aids!

But let us be fair to the IT Department, the staff training group within the Human Resources Department (HR) is sometimes the group that is charged with helping users improve productivity.  HR’s focus is often on their ‘to do list’, which never includes staff computer productivity, as it is not a problem!  How can it be a problem when the question is never asked!  ‘We never get asked by office staff for productivity Workshops!’  ‘Do productivity Workshops exist – I’ve never heard of one before?’

Offer a 3% productivity improvement to the factory manager, they will be very interested, analyse any suggestions and implement ideas that generate this amount of saving with all haste.

So let us approach the Operational Management direct as no one else wants to take responsibility in this area as it is too hard!  We hope that this level of management will be open minded enough to consider office productivity improvements for his staff.

Office Managers are more cautious.  Let us look at examples of how two managers may act on suggestions to improve computer efficiency:

Manager #1:           ‘If I can find a way to save my staff wasting their time, reduce the possibility of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and be able to let my people work less overtime and helping them leave the office earlier, I will have a much more content and effective group of Office Workers.’

Manager #2:          ‘What IS the point of people saving time at their computers?  My staff will just spend another 20 minutes talking at the coffee machine and they will not produce any additional benefit for the department or our organisation!’

What resources and time required to begin to address this situation?  If we are talking about sending all our staff on a three day advanced course that has a 20% interest level for the participants, requiring them to devote more hours on their return to their workstations to practice and experiment.  ‘Not interested – Thanks!’

We know that in a two hour presentation, we can alert users to over 100 of these issues, that can have a significant impact on the way they work.  But the key issue is to be able to return to their desks with them, and guide them through the changes to their systems to implement these ideas and modifications.  There are two ways to achieve this:

Either, with face2face Workshops, follow up every attendee with an additional 30 minutes 1-1 tuition at their computer, to action (one time only!) these ideas, while they are fresh in their minds,

or, by using an e-Learning delivery format, that teaches the user a new idea, and them prompts the user to action, change and practice each new skill and concept,

or, by a combination of these two as well as using online STEPBYSTEP IntraNet sequences, that last between three and six minutes to show — by animation – how to action and set up some of the shortcuts to enable all users work smarter.

Changing ingrained habits can be difficult, but our experience has shown that most users value efficiency, provided they can be categorically shown that worthwhile savings can be made.  One click is always easier than two, three or six, and one decision requires less mental effort than six!

Both alternatives above will take the user less than 3 hours in total to be shown, learn and set up over 100 new productivity concepts that can save a minimum of 15 minutes a day.  The users return on investment is significant, and the payback time is measured as a maximum of 12 working days.  [15 minutes a day saved for 12 days is a saving of 180 minutes].  However, more importantly, once a user is exposed to these new concepts, then they can begin to customise their system even more to perform in a way that is more efficient for them, based on the tasks that they perform daily.

‘I never knew how much I didn’t know’, is often the comment made by users after attending a productivity Workshop.  Users are not to blame, if no one has every shown them how to improve theirown productivity.

OK Managers:  Over to you . . .

Office efficiency is NOW in your court!

Probable Productivity Gain:  between 5% and 12%

Peter.Thomas@improvingUDP.com                                                           www.improvingUDP.com

The Author:          Mr Peter Thomas is a director of X-PAT Pte Limited. X-PAT is committed to working with computer users to make them more productive and remove computer drudgery from their lives!

ROI Analysis:       Please email me and ask for the numbers.  You will be amazed at the calculations.