This is the translation of my original French Linkedin post.
Do you know how much time lost in your team actually costs?
46 500€—that was the annual cost of part of the time lost by this team of four developers.
Wasted time: a common reality
It’s extremely common in our jobs to lose 20 minutes here, wait 15 minutes there, or spend 30 minutes redoing exactly the same thing as the day before.
We almost all work in a suboptimal way. And that’s okay, to some extent. We’re not machines; we’re not meant to be productive 100% of the time, and that’s perfectly fine. But even accepting our imperfect nature, this still creates two issues at work.
Economic problem: wasted money
If every member of a team of four or five people loses just one hour per day, by the end of the year, it amounts to the equivalent of a whole salary burned. That’s enough to hire one more person on the team—that’s huge!
“But Julien, nobody loses one hour per day every single day!”
Sorry, but I’ve been working for 15 years, and I sincerely believe almost everyone loses one hour per day. Because wasting time is insidious and unconscious. Depending on the situation, it can involve pure waiting, tedious repetition, unnecessary complexity, endless searching, penny-pinching, or an incomprehensible crash. Wasting time is always there, even though it’s often invisible.
Human problem: sinking morale
When you join a new team, it’s always fascinating to see how resilient people are and how they endure unnecessary or inefficient practices or processes. Most have become used to or resigned to their situation, while others remain frustrated and angry. Due to a lack of knowledge, tools, power, trust, influence, or time, that little thing that makes life miserable is left untouched. That’s the human cost of a daily routine filled with waiting, repetition, complexity, searching, stinginess, and crashes.
A surprising paradox
“If people aren’t happy, they just have to change what doesn’t work for them.”
Thank you for that oh-so-wise statement! The vast majority of people I’ve met love their job and want to do it as well as possible. The problem is, we’re faced with a stunning paradox.
Every team I’ve worked with had (and still has) an enormous amount of things to do. Too many projects to finish, features to deliver, products to develop, or deadlines to meet. We have to go fast to attract new customers and keep the existing ones happy. That’s what we’re all trying to do. Unfortunately, it’s also what prevents us from stepping back and addressing our issues to improve our daily lives.
The paradox is this: we’re constantly losing time while desperately lacking it. We keep losing something we don’t have. In a way, it’s almost poetic.
Find out how much you could save
Curious to know how much you could save? Check out heureperdue.fr for an immediate estimate. It’s a free, no-signup, simple calculator I created to help you measure how much time lost costs your teams. I’m convinced that understanding this cost can serve as a trigger to take action or influence improvements in your daily work or that of your teams.
If you have feedback or questions, feel free to reach out.
Oh, and what were those 46 500€?
The devs on this team were running their legacy tests on their own machines. Their PCs were tied up for 1.5 hours a day, with little else they could do. In just a few weeks, we improved those tests and the legacy just enough to run them on a continuous integration pipeline. The result? Less money and time wasted, and much better comfort and reliability in their work.