- Productivity: The results a person produces per unit of time that he spends on an activity. The following factors affect a person’s productivity:
- Knowledge and skills: The raw talent and capability a person has to perform a particular task
- Prior experience: A person’s familiarity with the work and the typical problems of a particular task
- Sense of urgency: A person’s drive to generate the desired results within established time frames (urgency influences a person’s focus and concentration on an activity)
- Ability to switch among several tasks: A person’s level of comfort moving to a second task when he hits a roadblock in his first one so that he doesn’t sit around stewing about his frustrations and wasting time
- The quality and setup of the physical environment: Proximity and arrangement of a person’s furniture and the support equipment he uses; also the availability and condition of the equipment and resources
- Efficiency: The proportion of time a person spends on project work as opposed to organizational tasks that aren’t related to specific projects. The following factors affect a person’s efficiency:
- Non-project-specific professional activities: The time a person spends attending general organization meetings, handling incidental requests, and reading technical journals and periodicals about his field of specialty
- Personal activities: The time a person spends getting a drink of water, going to the restroom, organizing his work area, conducting personal business on the job, and talking about non-work-related topics with co-workers
The more time a person spends each day on non-project-specific and personal activities, the less time he has to work on his project assignments.
- Availability: The portion of time a person is at the job as opposed to on leave. Organizational policy regarding employee vacation days, sick days, holidays, personal days, mental health days, administrative leave, and so on define a person’s availability.
When deciding how many work-hours to budget for a person to do a particular task, adjust the number required at peak performance to allow for actual levels of productivity, efficiency, and availability.