There are many interpretations on how to be a productive and results oriented when performing your duties as a project manager.  However, this concept is often confused between being time oriented and results oriented. So which one are you?

Being Time oriented versus Results Oriented

In order to understand the difference between being time oriented and results oriented, you must first think about what each of those terms really means.

Take for instance, our two fictional project managers: Jim and Jane.  Both are great at what they do, but which one would you consider time oriented or results oriented – who is more productive? Jim comes into the office very early in the morning, and is the last one to leave in the evening. His weeks are those of long hours and as a result, he works very hard and seems diligent for doing so.  When consulting, and to be kind to his clients, he doesn’t always charge all of his time spent on projects – but instead charges what time the project budgeted for.   He tends to have long, regular meetings to discuss matters in depth, and only communicates via email with his team.  He is perceived to be the best at what he does and always adapts to the working style and needs of the company or upper management.

Overall, Jim is of the opinion that it’s more important when you work and manages his productivity by giving a maximum effort because he believes doing so will produce maximum results.  Though solutions are not always apparent, he will always offer all the time that is needed to solve any problem, even if it means working overnight or all weekend.

Jane usually comes into the office during regular office hours, though she occasionally has long days.  When consulting, she is meticulous in charging any and all time spent on a project.  She doesn’t put as much importance on when she arrives and when she leaves as much as she does on what she accomplishes during the day – regardless of how long or short the day is.  She is perceived to be the best at what she does because she believes that she must find a way to satisfy the needs of the company and upper management with her own working style.  She believes in working smartly by making her time count for the work she has to accomplish.  She tends to use whichever means of communication is appropriate for the situation, be it email, instant messaging, phone calls, etc.

Overall, Jane is of the opinion that it’s more important how you work and will always try to manage her productivity by giving the minimum input necessary for the maximum results in order to be efficient.  Though solutions are not always apparent, Jane has more of an approach that any problem can be solved by stepping up and offering her ideas.

So if you haven’t guessed it yet, Jim is time oriented and Jane is results oriented.

Further Analysis

Time oriented working has been in practice since the first worker appeared for work on a bright morning.  There was a time where your manager or supervisor needed to see you coming into work early and leaving late, all the while working hard (or at least looking like you were) which meant you were a diligent worker as compared to a co-worker who produced more in less time.

Today, not all businesses and jobs in general necessarily need a time oriented approach and Project Management is one of those fields where working in a results oriented manner, means that your goal shifts from focusing on time spent on tasks to the results needed to advance to the project milestones.  Much like driving, you must visualize where you want to go – and then work to get there by the shortest possible route using the least amount of resources.  Thus, you are producing results every time.

On projects where time is money coming out of your project budget, whose limit is fast approaching – having a Project Manager who focuses on the work accomplished can guarantee a project completion on time and within budget. Looking back at our description of Jim and Jane, it is important to note that most time oriented project managers will not charge all of their work on a project necessarily to offset the budgeting issue and some even expect the same from their project team members.  On the same project, the results oriented project manager will track and charge all of her time worked on the project and expects accurate time tracking from her entire project team and resources.

Though the approach of Jim seems smart in the short term, in the long term it will make estimating project resourcing for the next project much more difficult because the reality of the time spent on a similar project will not match the actual work time needed for the next project.  Jane sees the bigger picture and when she says that a task will take 30 hours, it’s because her experience and knowledge of the actual time spent on similar tasks has averaged out to that amount of time.

ROWE

The concept of ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) is a management strategy that was adapted by the popular retail chain Best Buy. They basically believe that each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want as long as the work gets done.  Management of this type of work method can be very challenging but the employee satisfaction and bottom line results are very high.

Many projects that focus on established results as milestones succeed as compared to those whose focus is on the time spent on those same tasks with complete disregard of results being attained.

Time oriented

The biggest issue with Time oriented project management is that project managers will work on a project for a set period of time – whether it is finished or not becomes secondary. As we all know – no project goes down without delays – but if you are time oriented – the project will quickly become hopeless. Why waste all that time and effort for no results?  Not all projects that are time oriented are doomed to fail – but they do burn a lot of candle hours for results that may have been achieved in less time.

In Conclusion

So how do you know if you have the skills to be a results oriented project manager?   Often these skills are very similar to those of the life skills that most of us use every day.  It’s not spending 2 hours grocery shopping that means we are providing for our family, it’s what we buy while grocery shopping that’s important – even if it means we prepared and planned meals ahead of time – and only took 30 minutes to shop.

We often perceive the value of what we are getting by the time spent on getting that item or goal. There is no magic recipe to being results oriented, it’s more of just a combination of really being open-minded and objective, understanding the context in which we view things, sticking to the real facts and ignoring distractions, while managing our own productivity and those of our team.  Basically, change your focus from what it is now and maintain accountability for your work to focus on achieving your goal.

The next time you are at work and making decisions about how to work on your project or task you have to undertake – think about whether your work is time oriented or results oriented. Apply the different style of Jim and Jane and to your work methods and watch those distant results suddenly come into focus and completion. Focus on what you need to do, then get there – rather than focus on how long it will take you to get there.

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