Say you are in the Accident and Emergency at your local hospital? How much of what is actually happening is contributing to the well being of the patients? At a recent family crisis as a visitor I managed my stress by doing a time and motion study (sad I know). Over 48 hours I sampled activity and tasks, and albeit not scientific (it was hardly a controlled environment) it produced an interesting profile:

Sample size 256.

I would suggest an interesting stat in there is the time with the patient (7%).

If we assumed the objective of going through the process (the Successful Customer Outcome) is to make people better how much time is really spent doing that? How much time is spent on tasks and activities which may not directly contribute to that?

All our jobs involve us in tasks and activities which may not directly contribute to the SCO – how many of those could be released to spend more time achieving the desired outcome? It might not be 93% but it is one helluva a lot.In this example we would reduce costs, improve morale of overworked nurses and enhance the customer experience. Who wouldn’t want that?

How can you do that?