Productivity is something that we talk a lot about.  But what does Productivity mean?  Is productivity a generic term?  Does it apply to everyone in the same way?  I don’t think so.  I think we need to start looking at Productivity on a Role Based basis.

By this, I mean that dependent on your Role, Productivity can mean different things to different people.

Take for example a few different roles:  A production line manager, a marketing executive and a financial controller.

What does productivity mean to each of these people?

A production line manager might be interested in people information such as contact details so if someone calls in sick he/she knows who is available to be called in as cover.  And if something on the production line breaks who do they call and when.  So productivity to them might be a device that fits in their pocket that contains this information and with a couple of button presses can make calls or initiate an email.

A marketing executive might be interested in how to locate and catalogue information, or in drilling in customer information, or analyzing the effects of a marketing campaign.  So productivity to them might be a personalised business intelligence portal where they can access information, perform drill downs and get graphical representations of campaign results.

A financial controller might be interested in corporate performance results, market and share price information and expenditure versus income reports.  So productivity to this person might mean having information delivered via email each Monday morning, consolidating data from multiple repositories and providing roll-ups of fiscal information.

As you can see, other than technology there are no consistent definitions of productivity in these scenarios.

What does all this mean?  It means that when someone states “productivity gains” as either a benefit of a solution or as a desirable outcome they want, you need to ensure that you understand what that actually translates to for the people who are on the receiving end of the solution i.e. the end users.

The IO models are excellent at showing you where you can make productivity gains, but from there the best tools you have in you armoury are your ears, eyes and the grey squishy thing in between.