Most of us in the corporate world have either sent or received an email that starts off something like this. It’s a reasonable task with usually a reasonable deadline. But is it a reasonable expectation? A lot depends on the culture of your organization and if they are ready for process improvement.
The Early Bird Comments
If you are lucky there is one or two people who try to touch things in their in box only once. You will probably get back these responses within a couple of days. Overall they are probably the most constructive and give you an idea if you are on the right track or not. It doesn’t really help you much in terms of time, but it’s nice to know someone is paying attention. They have actually done more to help themselves, but overall it’s a win for everyone.
Work expands to fill time
Deadlines are strange things. What’s the difference between a one week deadline and a one month deadline? In many cases, one month deadlines are one week deadlines that have expanded over time. Someone got frustrated with people not responding to a week. Then it became 2 weeks. It probably happened again, and next time it became a month. If you are unlucky enough you may have even run into a 2 month deadlines. How long does it take to read a 10 page document? Unfortunately, the answer is essentially how long you give people for the task – usually.
The longer it takes, the longer it takes
If you give your reviewers a week, invariably you will get someone on the last day asking for an extension. Usually a day or two and you’ve got things wrapped up. If you give your reviewers 2 months, not only will you still not get all the responses, you will most likely have to go hunt them down. And then people will feel compelled to provide comments when they might not of had anything to comment on in the first place. There’s probably more than a few people wondering why things are taking so long. And probably very few that know that the same process used to only take a week.
Try something radical
Don’t accept comments after 5 days. Now that’s a process improvement. It helps if you have contractual language saying that you are going to manage comments this way. Otherwise you may need a very understanding executive who will withstand the cultural backlash in favor of improved productivity. In organizations where this approach is used, no one thinks twice about it. The first time you do this; there will most likely be some backlash. Eventually people will catch on.
One caution, don’t just spring this on people. Make sure they know what you are going to do long before you do it. It’s usually best to include this detail in a project charter or other similar document. This will ultimately undo years of bad habits. Wordsmithing, delays, and comments for the sake of comments will become a thing of the past. The comments you do get, will be the ones you want. And you may discover a new level of efficiency hidden in your organization.
