The Parable of the new clock

A deep throat mole in a mid level government bureaucracy clipped these emails for me.

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From: MD
To: All staff
Subject: Timekeeping
Date 01/04/07

As you are all aware the productivity project has now been completed. One of the key things that was identified was timekeeping. We as an organisation are based over many sites with workers who work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

It is important to know to the second what the time is, over the years an adhoc system of clocks and personal watches has been built up. However, there is no standard time, the time in head office can be five minutes faster then Glasgow time.

It was also identified that no one took responsibility for managing the time or upkeep of the time systems or where management did occur it was sporadic or labour intensive.

Therefore the management team have introduced clock 2.0 together with time 1.5 to the organisation which will centralise all clock and time management systems. This will roll out over the next couple of months. Every office will have one standardised clock powered by the mains and synchronised with the main head office clock. This £ 5 million project will pay for itself in two years from business process improvements.

Further project updates will follow in due course.

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From: Project Clock Team
To: All Staff
Subject: Clock teething problems
Date 02/04/07

There have been some minor problems with the new clock system. In some offices clocks are showing 9.10 am when it is 9.00 am and alternatively 4 pm when it is 5 pm. Managers have been penalising staff for turning up late or going home earlier. Engineers are working on the problem, however for now please ignore the clock system if it does not agree with your personal time keeping system.

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From: Project Clock Team
To: All Staff
Subject: Clock project now fully live
Date: 03/04/07

The Clocks have now been rolled out to the entire organisation. All staff should now be using the clock system. Please note the clock works in 15 minutes units so now 1 am is now 4 clock units. All old time forms should now be returned to your local administration team. All time recording should now use the new 15 minute unit reporting system.

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From: Head of Resources
To: All Managers; Finance staff
Subject: Watches
Date: 30/04/07

I have noticed that expenditure for new office clocks and expense claims for watches have now increased. With the state of the art clock system neither expenses can be justified.

Such claims will no longer be paid by the Finance department.

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From:MD
To: All Staff
Subject: Clock system failures
Date: 02/05/07

It has become apparent that we are now running two parallel time keeping systems, the old paper based system and the new clock system.

I have ordered an immediate suspension of the clock system while the entire project is reviewed. A project review team has been set up and will submit it's report shortly.

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From: MD
To: All staff
Subject: New clock system
Date 10/05/07

We have decided to simplify all clock and time keeping systems devolving ownership to local departments. New clocks will be available from your local stores from next week.New paper forms using hour units will be sent out shortly.

This £1 million project will pay for itself in six months.

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Of course the majority of organisations will never move beyond the parallel old and new system. The one thing that you need to do when implementing new processes and systems is make sure they are fit for purpose. Make sure you are not implementing something just because it is a new idea.

If the idea has been implemented before take time to find out what happened last time, don't be pompous enough to think that the implementation team just didn't do it right last time .