How to Make Things Faster

Chapter 2. Phyllis

In my earliest engagements, my manager Bob had prepared a list of specific tasks for me to work through when I got to the customer site. Over time, he would give me more latitude over deciding what those tasks should be. One engagement changed everything.

One Monday, as usual, my new client would show me the facility, introduce me to the people I’d be working with, and review the tasks that I’d be performing. After the meeting, a database administrator (DBA) escorted me to the desk where I would work for the next few days. I then set out to perform the task I had been assigned: to balance their database files across a bunch of new disk drives.

I was done mid-Wednesday, and I let everyone know that I was ready for them to test the system. Shortly after that, one of the managers introduced me to Phyllis (not her real name) and a handful of her colleagues. Phyllis was a leader in the accounting department. Her whole department, I now learned, had been unhappy with the system. Their unhappiness had in fact been the impetus for buying a bunch of new disk drives and soliciting my help. Phyllis’s colleagues had come with her to watch the event that was about to unfold.

After the introductions, Phyllis sat down at a terminal to run the part of the application that she was the most upset about. Here’s how it would go down: she would type some stuff, and if the thing that happened next wasn’t fast enough, then my visit (at least my visit thus far) would be deemed a failure. ...