Hold your horses

A time and motion study was conducted in the 1940s to identify ways to improve the efficiency of firing a mobile artillery piece — either to speed up the number of rounds in a given time and/or decrease the required number of people it took to do it – almost a classic definition of “productivity.”

As part of the analysis, the researchers examined the carefully orchestrated movements of the gunnery crew – a total of five soldiers as I recall – as they loaded, aimed, primed, and fired the gun. The process had been carefully choreographed over time for maximum efficiency and speed.

Watching, and later filming, the dance of the gunners, the analyst was puzzled by what seemed to be a series of wasted and wholly unnecessary steps. Two of the gunners, in fact, seemed to do nothing half the time, while the other three worked their respective asses off. Just before the gun was fired, these two soldiers just stepped back, one to either side of the gun and simply stood there; watching the other three work. Once the gun was fired, they stepped back in to help. It was obviously part of the carefully choreographed routine, but it made no sense.

Puzzled, the analyst queried other gun crews looking for an answer. The whole loading and firing process was carefully scripted, extremely orchestrated, right down to individual movements and roles. There had to be a reason why two of the guys just stood there half the time. Nobody seemed to know why; they just all agreed that it had to be done that way. It was the way they were taught, and that was the way it was done, period.

Finally the researchers asked an old colonel of artillery, someone who had been around for a while, and someone that actually trained the younger gunners. The veteran knew immediately. “They’re holding the horses,” he said. “What horses,” asked the researchers. “Why the ones that used to haul the guns. Each gun was hauled by two horses. If you didn’t hold them steady when the gun fired, they would bolt.” Of course, the horses had been replaced by mechanized artillery years before.

Identify the people in your organization whose jobs are to hold the horses. Many are probably “controlling” things they have no control over. Or perhaps they are monitoring the trivial. So many things are self-correcting these days, it’s often worthwhile to convert these superfluous observers into productive workers.

Story from a blog post by Gavin Clabaurg’s Digital Diner