Where has the time gone?

Anyone can tell you that working in a large organization has its perks - and downsides. And one of these downsides is the disappearing time.

The past two weeks has been an absolute horror. I was the focal person for a project. Every day took an additional investment of three hours, so instead of the 40-hour work week I have an 11x6-hour work week. I decided to find out where the extra time was going. And guess what?

Getting daily work permit approval: 1.5 hours
This includes greeting the technicians and explaining the nature of the work to be performed, hunting for the supervisor, travel times (they ARE significant in the campus, median travel time between locations is a huge 15 minutes), and the electronic signature (why isn't the system more user friendly?).

Mediation between unit owners and the project team: cumulative 2 hours
The project has been given a go, and the consultants are really good at their job, but unit owners are reluctant to accept the change - the classic Resistance to Change. And the strong blaming culture does not seem to help.

The lunch hour: 1 hour
Oh well. Man's gotta eat.

The actual work: cumulative 4 hours
Hmmm.

Some slacking: cumulative 0.5 hours
Even the best project team are human. Given the local culture, I believe 0.5 hours is quite deserving of praise already.

The closing out of the daily work permits: 0.5 hours
I know, it's unbelievable. I think it was worse before the electronic system was implemented.

Applying work permit for the following day: 1.5 hours
The worst part. The electronic paperwork drives me nuts, probably because it's already late evening and the interface is horrid. Coupled with a lousy keyboard on the overloaded office laptop, you have a recipe for frustration.

Total: 11 hours

So we see that only 4/11 = 36% of the time was spent on the actual work. Which is either absurd, or "that's how it's supposed to be".

How can we improve? Pretty obvious points, actually:

Permit: The permit system takes 3.5/11 = 32% of the time. It could have been streamlined. There is little added value of having to spend so much time on this, considering that on average the ratio is 20 min/permit : 10 min/task. An alternate permit system for multiple "light" work would help. Or just abolish it altogether, and transfer custody to the project team. Or have the unit owners lead the change.

Resistance to change: The mindset "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is appealing, but is also a hindrance to improvement. Thinking this way is a sign that some serious firefighting is going on on a daily basis, pointing to a deeper underlying problem. More importantly, is the status quo "ain't broke"?

Responsibility: Under the current system, if something happens to the unit [due to the project], the unit owners will still be held responsible. This does not make sense. How can a party be held responsible for some other party's work? If you send your laptop for servicing, and the poor fellow breaks it, can I blame you for agreeing to send the laptop for servicing?

All of which have to do with the underlying system instead of the actual work.

Where has the time gone? I think the answer is clear.