Discussion Thread

I was wondering what the view is on "efficiency" in your place of work. Are there tasks that are currently done inefficiently that you feel could be handled better? Are these tasks limited due to their complexity, or do they have poor documentation? Does one person in the office keep doing the work just because they are the only one who understands it, and woe is the next person who has to eventually take over for them when they leave? Is it a task that everyone recognizes could be handled automatically with a script or piece of software, but nobody knows how to develop it and so you continue on with business as usual?

I can start with examples of my own.

We definitely struggle with almost every one of these issues where I work from time to time. Due to the sheer number of tasks, different ones inevitably start getting handled consistently by only a few people. SOPs are developed, but then keeping them up to date becomes another task in and of itself. Over the past few years, I will note that we have developed a number of scripts in R/python/VBA that have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to complete certain tasks. I will not say it "simplified" these tasks because maintaining the code and input files requires time as well, but I would argue that it is time better spent than continuing without these things.

In the past year, I can also think of a case where I identified an opportunity for a script to be developed to help improve a certain task's efficiency. After we found someone willing to help write the script, I asked why it was never done before when this task has been in existence for years. The answer I received was a combination of "nobody cared enough to write it" and "it was understood that it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be".

Are these issues that appear across the industry?

I was wondering what the view is on "efficiency" in your place of work. Are there tasks that are currently done inefficiently that you feel could be handled better? Are these tasks limited due to their complexity, or do they have poor documentation? Does one person in the office keep doing the work just because they are the only one who understands it, and woe is the next person who has to eventually take over for them when they leave? Is it a task that everyone recognizes could be handled automatically with a script or piece of software, but nobody knows how to develop it and so you continue on with business as usual?

I can start with examples of my own.

We definitely struggle with almost every one of these issues where I work from time to time. Due to the sheer number of tasks, different ones inevitably start getting handled consistently by only a few people. SOPs are developed, but then keeping them up to date becomes another task in and of itself. Over the past few years, I will note that we have developed a number of scripts in R/python/VBA that have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to complete certain tasks. I will not say it "simplified" these tasks because maintaining the code and input files requires time as well, but I would argue that it is time better spent than continuing without these things.

In the past year, I can also think of a case where I identified an opportunity for a script to be developed to help improve a certain task's efficiency. After we found someone willing to help write the script, I asked why it was never done before when this task has been in existence for years. The answer I received was a combination of "nobody cared enough to write it" and "it was understood that it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be".

Are these issues that appear across the industry?

I was wondering what the view is on "efficiency" in your place of work. Are there tasks that are currently done inefficiently that you feel could be handled better? Are these tasks limited due to their complexity, or do they have poor documentation? Does one person in the office keep doing the work just because they are the only one who understands it, and woe is the next person who has to eventually take over for them when they leave? Is it a task that everyone recognizes could be handled automatically with a script or piece of software, but nobody knows how to develop it and so you continue on with business as usual?

I can start with examples of my own.

We definitely struggle with almost every one of these issues where I work from time to time. Due to the sheer number of tasks, different ones inevitably start getting handled consistently by only a few people. SOPs are developed, but then keeping them up to date becomes another task in and of itself. Over the past few years, I will note that we have developed a number of scripts in R/python/VBA that have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to complete certain tasks. I will not say it "simplified" these tasks because maintaining the code and input files requires time as well, but I would argue that it is time better spent than continuing without these things.

In the past year, I can also think of a case where I identified an opportunity for a script to be developed to help improve a certain task's efficiency. After we found someone willing to help write the script, I asked why it was never done before when this task has been in existence for years. The answer I received was a combination of "nobody cared enough to write it" and "it was understood that it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be".

Are these issues that appear across the industry?

I was wondering what the view is on "efficiency" in your place of work. Are there tasks that are currently done inefficiently that you feel could be handled better? Are these tasks limited due to their complexity, or do they have poor documentation? Does one person in the office keep doing the work just because they are the only one who understands it, and woe is the next person who has to eventually take over for them when they leave? Is it a task that everyone recognizes could be handled automatically with a script or piece of software, but nobody knows how to develop it and so you continue on with business as usual?

I can start with examples of my own.

We definitely struggle with almost every one of these issues where I work from time to time. Due to the sheer number of tasks, different ones inevitably start getting handled consistently by only a few people. SOPs are developed, but then keeping them up to date becomes another task in and of itself. Over the past few years, I will note that we have developed a number of scripts in R/python/VBA that have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to complete certain tasks. I will not say it "simplified" these tasks because maintaining the code and input files requires time as well, but I would argue that it is time better spent than continuing without these things.

In the past year, I can also think of a case where I identified an opportunity for a script to be developed to help improve a certain task's efficiency. After we found someone willing to help write the script, I asked why it was never done before when this task has been in existence for years. The answer I received was a combination of "nobody cared enough to write it" and "it was understood that it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be".

Are these issues that appear across the industry?

I was wondering what the view is on "efficiency" in your place of work. Are there tasks that are currently done inefficiently that you feel could be handled better? Are these tasks limited due to their complexity, or do they have poor documentation? Does one person in the office keep doing the work just because they are the only one who understands it, and woe is the next person who has to eventually take over for them when they leave? Is it a task that everyone recognizes could be handled automatically with a script or piece of software, but nobody knows how to develop it and so you continue on with business as usual?

I can start with examples of my own.

We definitely struggle with almost every one of these issues where I work from time to time. Due to the sheer number of tasks, different ones inevitably start getting handled consistently by only a few people. SOPs are developed, but then keeping them up to date becomes another task in and of itself. Over the past few years, I will note that we have developed a number of scripts in R/python/VBA that have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to complete certain tasks. I will not say it "simplified" these tasks because maintaining the code and input files requires time as well, but I would argue that it is time better spent than continuing without these things.

In the past year, I can also think of a case where I identified an opportunity for a script to be developed to help improve a certain task's efficiency. After we found someone willing to help write the script, I asked why it was never done before when this task has been in existence for years. The answer I received was a combination of "nobody cared enough to write it" and "it was understood that it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be".

Are these issues that appear across the industry?

I was wondering what the view is on "efficiency" in your place of work. Are there tasks that are currently done inefficiently that you feel could be handled better? Are these tasks limited due to their complexity, or do they have poor documentation? Does one person in the office keep doing the work just because they are the only one who understands it, and woe is the next person who has to eventually take over for them when they leave? Is it a task that everyone recognizes could be handled automatically with a script or piece of software, but nobody knows how to develop it and so you continue on with business as usual?

I can start with examples of my own.

We definitely struggle with almost every one of these issues where I work from time to time. Due to the sheer number of tasks, different ones inevitably start getting handled consistently by only a few people. SOPs are developed, but then keeping them up to date becomes another task in and of itself. Over the past few years, I will note that we have developed a number of scripts in R/python/VBA that have greatly reduced the amount of time needed to complete certain tasks. I will not say it "simplified" these tasks because maintaining the code and input files requires time as well, but I would argue that it is time better spent than continuing without these things.

In the past year, I can also think of a case where I identified an opportunity for a script to be developed to help improve a certain task's efficiency. After we found someone willing to help write the script, I asked why it was never done before when this task has been in existence for years. The answer I received was a combination of "nobody cared enough to write it" and "it was understood that it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be".

Are these issues that appear across the industry?