Cherry Picking and Time Insensitivity - Challenges for Enterprise Work Management.

“… the earlier riser gets first choice, but this will not be a true reflection on performance”

Humans are wired to select the path of least resistance, why expend energy if it’s unnecessary or inconvenient. If we’re given free choice, it’s only natural that we opt for the easiest route and the one that is most convenient for us, regardless of team or organisational requirements. 

All too often when it comes to processing back office work, and what is termed as off-line tasks, the systems inherited or put in place today frequently allow for the free selection of work across team members. This free selection of work permits users to cherry pick tasks and select work out of order or sequence. This is not an unusual situation, in fact, quite the norm and seen across many organisations. The result is a real impact on the performance and quality of work delivered. Adding to this the supervisor and manager lacks a clear view on how teams are preforming in real time, the work allocated and the skills necessary to complete outstanding tasks. In addition, systems often lack the flexibility to change which in turn compounds the issue.

However, fixing the problem is not straightforward for organisations today and can be expensive and time consuming.

Introducing an Enterprise Work Management Platform can help alleviate the problem by tackling common issues in the delivery of work to teams and the associated bottlenecks that occur in today’s busy organisations.

Adopting an agile approach should give the business control, visibility and the flexibility to adapt and change without the requirement of a complex IT project.  In organisations where teams are often segmented and potentially work across multiple locations and time-zones a work management platform that supports automation is essential to ensure smooth operations.

Eliminating the ease in which team member’s cherry pick work can be rectified by:

• Balancing the autonomy of users to cherry pick against the associated productivity gains.
• Enabling both automatic and manual distribution of work based on team member’s availability, time allocated and skill sets will lead to a fair distribution of work across the entire team.
• Creating rules (as defined by management) for work allocation enables the ability of managers to see exactly how work is progressing and allows the ability to change or improve according to business requirements and not those set by IT.

With empowering business to take back control, based on up to the minute knowledge, this will enable fairer management of work and tighter control within the organisation.