DILO

A couple of studies now so that one sees what I am talking about.

A must on every analysis is a DILO (Day In Life Of). The consultant is going to spend a whole working day with someone. This could be a sales representative, a clerk in an office, a factory supervisor, any manager, a customer service representative, a book-keeper, anyone.

What a consultant does is the following: During that day he records EVERY SINGLE MINUTE what this person does. The consultant writes down something like that: "09.35 - 09.37, received phone call. It was about a customer complaint which could not be resolved. 09.37 - 09.41, went online and checked personal e-mail and cleared spam filter.... In the background another colleague smokes a cigarette and hides behind a big plant"

Basically, everything must be recorded; what the observed person does, what is happening in the background, anything.

After the observation the consultants types everything into a template, minute by minute and classifies the activities. In the above example the first one would be productive work, the second one non-productive. Everything is colour coded and the result is a pie-chart of how much time is spent productive and how much is non-productive.

For supervisors are other classifications possible, also for sales people.

Those studies are printed, stuck together that a whole day can be seen on one huge document. The cigarette comment will be used by the analyst to tell the story how much time was wasted during the day and how much time can be saved in case of a project...