Burned out versus corroded brakes - or workflows
Thursday, November 26th 2009 @ 11:08 PM (not yet rated)
I love metaphors and analogies as a way to help people understand complicated concepts. Take workflow security, for example. I recently had an idea that workflows are like the brakes on a vehicle.
If you overuse the brakes, for example, they can overheat and fail catastrophically. I recall driving to the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. There were signs all over the place telling you to take frequent stops at designated places along the road on the way down, so your brakes wouldn't overheat.
This is like the argument that you need to let people take a break at times during the work day, so they don't get burned out. It makes sense that people need a few minutes to recharge and relax. Many people will make use of that time to visit their favorite websites to check their Twitter or Facebook friends, or other non-work related sites.
But I've learned of a danger in being too easy on the brakes. Every time I take my vehicle into the shop for maintenance, and my mechanic checks the brakes, he keeps on saying the same thing, "the disks are corroding again due to NOT ENOUGH REGULAR USE, and they are causing the pads to wear down prematurely." It ends up costing me hundreds of dollars every couple of years to service the brakes, just because I don't drive them hard enough.
Now, I'm not going to make too many friends among your office staff by saying this, but I see this corrosion of my brakes as a similar phenomenon to the CORROSION OF WORKFLOWS when people spend too much time on social networking or other somewhat addictive personal sites while at work.
The more time people are thinking about their personal conversations, the harder it is for them to refocus on their work.
What do you think is a reasonable arrangement for people to have a break, and take some time to access social networking sites, from the point of view of productivity and quality?
Do you agree that this can lead to significant security issues, if people are increasingly less focused on the quality of work as they spend more time thinking about their last conversation, and their next one?
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