{"id":7391,"date":"2018-02-23T16:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7391"},"modified":"2018-02-23T00:10:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T00:10:31","slug":"weeknote-11-the-link-between-consultant-utilisation-and-beer-week-8-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/02\/weeknote-11-the-link-between-consultant-utilisation-and-beer-week-8-2018.htm","title":{"rendered":"Weeknote 11: The link between consultant utilisation and beer! (Week 8, 2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago<\/a> I commented that I was hoping to see Wales beat England in the Six Nations. We put up a good fight but, in the end, Eddie Jones’ team continued their unbeaten record at Twickenham. Then, this week, Manchester City got knocked out of the FA Cup by Wigan, who play in League 1 (the third tier of English football), so it’s not been a good month on the sporting front for me. Still, I have been enjoying the Winter Olympics!<\/p>\n

Thankfully, work has been a little more successful – and my return from half-term “holidays”<\/a> has seen me get properly stuck into my Modern Workplace project (though I do need to step out of it again for a few days next week). I also had the opportunity to spend some time with Microsoft in an “AI envisioning session” today.<\/p>\n

On Monday though, I made the journey to Long Eaton, to hear a former colleague and Fujitsu Distinguished Engineer, Ste Nadin (@SteNadinFJ<\/a>), give his views on “Demystifying DevOps” at the Nottingham and Derby branch of the BCS<\/a>. I was pleased to hear Ste start his talk by saying that he wouldn’t talk about tools very much (which is good – because culture is far more important in a DevOps strategy) and even more pleased when he used the medium of Lego to bring his presentation to life! Ste also made some interesting observations on measuring utilisation – something that’s close to my heart as a practicing\u00a0consultant.<\/p>\n

Taking a beer glass as an analogy, the glass may be seen as better when it’s fully utilised. Empty is 0% full, a short measure is 80%, and we really want it to be\u00a0100% full.<\/p>\n

Some people see consultant\u00a0diaries in that way – aiming to be 100% busy all the time.<\/p>\n

But let’s take another analogy – if a road is\u00a0100% utilised, that’s not so good – it’s not efficient. With infrastructure (like roads) we don’t really want to fill them to capacity but instead\u00a0to focus on flow!<\/p>\n

So, are people (not resources!) empty vessels to be utilised (like a beer glass) or more like a road where work flows?<\/p>\n

I’d argue that I’m not very efficient when I’m filled with beer – and it’s the same when utilisation is driven to 100% for an extended period too!<\/p>\n

It all comes down to wait time, which is\u00a0a fraction of %busy time over %idle time. After about 80% busy-ness (or even business?), wait time really spikes and, as utilisation increases, the ability to respond to change and priority decreases.\u00a0At 100% there is no flexibility and it’s difficult to prioritise (or respond to business change\/demands).<\/p>\n

This is shown in the diagram below, described in Nabil Hashmi’s post<\/a>\u00a0about The DevOps Handbook<\/a> (and it reminds me I really must finish reading The Phoenix Project<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\"Wait<\/p>\n

When I was a business manager (in my role as a Head of Practice when I worked at Fujitsu), my operations manager would ask me why I was forecasting that I would run a “bench”. I didn’t know about wait time then – but I knew I needed some flexibility to cope with unplanned work – not just a team that was maxxed out on planned work.<\/p>\n

A consulting business is never constant – we live in a world of peaks and troughs and, whilst someone suggested to me that, during quiet times, Consultants will drink from the proverbial pint pot and that, conversely, they need to fill it up in busy times, that’s not the whole picture. I’m fortunate that my manager understands my limits, my constraints and that I can’t be productive when constantly running at 100% but unfortunately there are many in this industry who don’t see things the same way…<\/p>\n

Right. I’m signing off now for what I hope is going to be a relaxing weekend… back soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago I commented that I was hoping to see Wales beat England in the Six Nations. We put up a good fight but, in the end, Eddie Jones’ team continued their unbeaten record at Twickenham. Then, this week, Manchester City got knocked out of the FA Cup by Wigan, who play in League … Continue reading Weeknote 11: The link between consultant utilisation and beer! (Week 8, 2018)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[666],"tags":[546,579],"class_list":["post-7391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeknotes","tag-business-management","tag-devops"],"yoast_head":"\nWeeknote 11: The link between consultant utilisation and beer! 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My wife and I spent the weekend in and around Chipping Campden with great weather, wonderful views,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Waffle and randomness"","block_context":{"text":"Waffle and randomness","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/inane-waffle"},"img":{"alt_text":"Restored Massey Ferguson Red Tractor at Vegetable Matters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/red-tractor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7407,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/03\/weeknote-12-50-50.htm","url_meta":{"origin":7391,"position":1},"title":"Weeknote 12: 50\/50 (Week 9, 2018)","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 5 March 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"So, after getting weeknote\u00a011 out early and supplementing it with a \"weeknote\u00a011a\", I'm writing weeknote\u00a012 the following Monday morning, on the train, which kind of defeats the object of a weeknote to wrap up the week. To be honest, last week was a bit... well, I don't know how to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/weeknotes"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8299,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2021\/06\/weeknote-21-2021-running-late.htm","url_meta":{"origin":7391,"position":2},"title":"Weeknote 21\/2021: Running late","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 3 June 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week's weeknote is a few days late... That was the week when I confirmed that: I'm still not a fan of panel discussions (I did take part in this event, but it still didn't do it for me)....or online events. Matt Ballantine's post on \"why I struggle with online\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/L7c4wS7T_T8\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8259,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2021\/04\/weeknote-15-2021-jabbed.htm","url_meta":{"origin":7391,"position":3},"title":"Weeknote 15\/2021: Jabbed!","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 19 April 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This week (last week)'s weeknote is a few days late, so here's what I learned in week 15 of 2021: It's hard coming back to work after taking a complete break for 10 days.Autonomy over your calendar is a really important part of wellbeing.Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are just a number,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8292,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2021\/05\/weeknote-20-2021-echo-chambers.htm","url_meta":{"origin":7391,"position":4},"title":"Weeknote 20\/2021: Echo chambers","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Friday 21 May 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This week has been a bit flat. The weather is mostly awful, so I don't much feel like riding my bike. I hurt my back exercising on Wednesday. And I have 5 weeks to get into shape for my ride across Wales. This weeknote will be a short one. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8592,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2023\/12\/weeknote-49-2023-back-to-work.htm","url_meta":{"origin":7391,"position":5},"title":"Weeknote 49\/2023: Back to work","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Friday 8 December 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"So I'm having another go at writing weeknotes. I think it might even be a mindful exercise and good for me\u2026 I was going to make this \"Weeknote 2696\" - because that's the number of weeks I've been on this earth (plus 3 days), so it's not a bad number\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Waffle and randomness"","block_context":{"text":"Waffle and randomness","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/inane-waffle"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0452-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0452-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0452-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/uploads\/IMG_0452-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7398,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7391\/revisions\/7398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}