The Better Business Analysis Institute. Presence the Better Business Analysis podcast. With Benjamin Walsh. Hi. Everybody and welcome. Back to. The Better Business Analysis Podcast. With your host. Benjamin Walsh and today we are on our BA Bytes series and I'm. Going to talk about 13 differences. Between efficiency and productivity, it's Friday the 13th here in New Zealand. And I thought, you know, why not have 13? Areas we can. Focus on. So what do I mean? What do I mean by?
Productivity versus efficiency. There is a difference. Between the two and it is often. Confused by? Business owners and business analysts alike, and I saw a. Great post that motivated me for this topic this week. On LinkedIn. Which was an infographic and it made me think that this is actually. Something we. Should talk about. Because they are two different things. And then I want to summarize where. I think. ABA should be. Playing in this mix. So let's start by understanding
the basics. Productivity is about achieving results, getting things done and creating value. Efficiency on the other. Hand is about. Minimizing. Waste optimizing processes. And doing things. With the least amount of effort or money. Think of it this way. Productivity is about doing the right. Things. While. Efficiency is about. Doing things right. OK. And so they both connect to value there. So I'm going. To go through a bit of a matrix. Here, efficiency versus.
Productivity to help us, kind of. Visualize it and and and there was a great infographic. I'll. See if I can share that. I have shared it on LinkedIn. So please actually. Follow me on LinkedIn and then. You'll be able to see the infographic too, but we're going to focus. I've put some examples here, but we're going to focus on efficiency. 1st and explain what that means. So that is focused on process. And cost to increase efficiency we need. To basically remove our
bureaucracy. Reduce unnecessary paperwork. And approvals implement. Digital workflows. And streamline document management. That would be a way of doing that, which I'm sure. As BA's we've. Been involved in that, some of us have. We want to automate processes. We want to use technology to. Automate repeatable tasks. For ex. For. Instance Employee. Software to automate. Data entry you could say that. AI is really. Attacking this area. In terms of business change?
Standardization We want to establish consistent procedures and guidelines for common tasks and we want to reduce errors which. Improves efficiency, so think lean 6 Sigma. Toyota model we want to streamline. We want to. Identify and eliminate unnecessary steps in a process. So you might have a current state and you're applying. You're. Literally applying lean. Processes to reduce. That so your. Future state. Is more efficient OK, since removing unnecessary steps. Bottlenecks.
OK. Redundancies. So it goes to two people or it. Just needs to go to 1. System, so that's very much streamlined. That's very much. A warehouse of where BAS. May, may, may. Play when they're looking at the. Internal value chain and it also includes learning continuously, so staying up to date with new. Technologies and best practice to improve. Efficiency. So that's around going well. Look, we're on a. ERP monolith system. That does everything. But actually.
Part of the system there's. One area, like manufacturing, it's not. Very good. So we. Get on invest. In we know. That our system. Can integrate with a Really. Good. Manufacturing module which will. Reduce. Time and effort, but you're only looking at the. The the lens of the process steps. OK. So that's that's efficiency. Is that clear? So efficiency you would. Wrap up with. Lens 6 Sigma. Continuous improvement. Some of the kind of. Agilists have moved into this space.
Kaizen, you know, kind of. Focusing on efficiency. OK, very much came out of. The manufacturing world. Originally. Now I want. To talk about. Productivity. Different. They're different. Things. Productivity. Productivity is. Focused on. People and value. An important difference there. So with productivity, we want to build motivation. We want to create a. Positive and supportive. Work environment, we want to offer incentives, recognize
achievement and provide. Opportunities for growth. OK. So that's employment value. We want to have a very clear vision. We want to ensure that employees understand the company's goals. And how their? Work contributes to those overarching goals. This helps aligns effort. And maintains. Focus. We want to foster. Collaboration, encouraging teamwork and knowledge sharing. We want to create opportunities. For cross functional. Collaboration and provide tools
for effective communication. We want to provide agency. What does that mean? We want to. Employ and empower, Sorry. Employ and empower employees. We. Want to encourage? Them. To make decisions and take ownership. Of their own work. OK. So that's really important. I like the. Word agency there. This can boost morale and increase engagement. So I've done in the right. Way this we always talk about autonomy like I want an autonomy to do my work. It's a very. Clinical.
Word. Agency is better. Because it suggests that you. Are your own agent. OK, which also. Means that you're skilled. We want to. Upskill. We want to invest in employee development to enhance their skills and. Capabilities, OK, so that's. Not like learning a new. Technology that's so that might be you know that's great that you as an employee know how to use the new technology and there might.
Be a skills enhancement. But that's about knowing about a new technology, whereas upskilling is around. Actually, skills and capability. Of the individuals. So that's around. Training programs. Workshops and mentorship. Opportunities and very much in the area that I'm passionate about. Upskilling you listening to this podcast? You are naturally. Upskilling while listening so you know. Congratulations. And then the next bit is around building as.
Long a company. Culture where employees feel valued. And connected. And, you know can can foster a. Sense of community. That is actually a sense of belonging provides natural. Productivity because it's. Focused on people and value, you also need to think. About rest. Says. Weird a so factor in rest encourage employees to take breaks and prioritize work life balance. Adequate risk can improve productivity and prevent burnout. So these. I'm going to give you one more.
In this area, which is actually #8 under productivity, I'm going to give you one more and then we're going to talk about how this relates to today in 2024. The last one is. Also. Around learning continuously so, but it's around creating the culture to. Allow that to happen. It's not just learn a new skill because the manager. Wants you to but create a culture of learning and growth, encouraging employees. To seek out new knowledge and skills, not just because of a.
Technology change. But literally. Because it's beneficial to. Themselves, and hopefully. Mutually beneficial to the organization. But it might even be. More focused on the. Employee even if there's even if that means that an employee grows. Out of the. Company it's not a. Bad thing to do that as long as people know. That that's like an Interstate in that their journey. OK, so. What? I think I. Just need to say really quickly here is that productivity is where. There needs.
To be more effort focused. It's naturally more soft. It is around the soft areas it. Is around motivation. It is around change management. It is around the HR side. But do you know what it's so? Important companies that don't. Focus on productivity, people in value. Right, creating real value and just try and. Focus on efficiency, which is actually doing more. With less they don't they they fail. It doesn't matter if. You've got an efficient company. People don't want to work there. OK.
So you need a mix of these two things and I think. Beas are focused. Much more on efficiency but not really value and I talked. About a lot of employee value things there, but this is also in. Relation to productivity and the value in. Which your customer. Feels dealing with your. Business so. If they know your employee, there is a. Link. Between employee happiness. And customer happiness there is. Eventually it is. Exposed that people aren't.
Happy working in a certain company and and you know. That will affect. Sales and customer sentiment. But if your customers are happy. And your employees are happy, so they're both happy. Then the value they get. Out of your or the perceived value they get out of. Dealing with. You is higher. And that's. Great, that's what. We want. Continuous long term relationships. With our customers. And want them to feel valued with our service and our products and our people to feel valued.
That's a. Long term sustainable. Productive company not. Just, you know, doing things cheaply. So you need to be able to maximize. Both. OK, they need to weigh them up. So while. Efficiency and. Productivity are distinct. They're not mutually. Exclusive. In fact, they often work together to achieve. Kind of like optimal. Results, so I'm going to give. You 6 examples here 1 is. To set. Clear goals. Ensure your team understands the objectives and priorities. That helps focus.
Our efforts on the right tasks. And those right tasks are valuable tasks, but there isn't any waste in them. OK. So that's number one. You're all shooting for the same goal. #2 is to. Prioritize tasks OK, use. Techniques like the. Eisenhower. Matrix to prioritize. Tasks based on. Urgency and importance. That means you're doing the most valuable for the. Organization. Right. And also, you know, they're not going. To be wasteful. Because they're at the top.
Of the pile, you still need to. Eliminate waste, OK? Either of your. If you want to be. Productive. You. Do need to eliminate waste but not? For the reasons of cutting costs. But just of. Value generation and making your. Employees feel like. You're actually creating. Some. Kind of value. Or something that's. Useful, so remove unnecessary steps or activities that don't. Contribute to value creation. OK, it's not. Increased cost. It's value creation.
Value is important it sometimes. Costs money. To create value. So it's not about doing it cheaper, it's about. Doing it. Producing more value, that's a different way mindset of looking at eliminating waste. You need to empower your team. Give. Employees Autonomy. We've talked about before and the tools they need to. Do their best work. Give them crappy tools. They're going to be ineffective and inefficient. OK, they might be productive in their outputs.
But it will. Be put in hand in hand with that you need to have. Great tools, so give them the tools to do the job if you foster a. Positive. Culture A supportive and collaborative culture. Where people feel. Valued and motivated. They will start to look for ways. To make your company more. Efficient anyway. They'll go. They'll. Worry about the fact that the. You know, printing. Double. Sided, you know. Color. Copies of something that just. Needed to be black and white,
which saves your company money. But they'll. Only do. That as. They're connecting with what your company is. Trying to achieve and they understand. That if. We save money there. We can invest in some funny areas like team building or. Better products for our customers. And the last one is continuous improvement. Encourage a mindset of continuously learning and improving SO. In conclusion, they're both essential for success, productivity and efficiency.
You should understand the differences and a lot. Of people don't so. You need to merge. The two and focus on both. As ABA you. Can't just focus on efficiency, which is a lot of some BAS have just. Done that. That's not right. That's not just. That's what Lean BA is about. That's not quite right, because if. You don't have value generation. It doesn't. Matter. If you've just cast. Got a lean running company? If no one's happy about it, remember doing the. Right things. Productivity.
Is just as important. As doing. Things. Right, which is efficiency you need. Both by. Striking a balance. Between the two. You'll be well on your way to achieving better. Results for the company and actually feeling great as a business analyst. You will be better. Now that's it. For this week, I really do have. A an ask. For you guys, if you could. Please follow me on. LinkedIn right or? Like the posts that would be really helpful. And share with your friends. That just boasts.
How many people listen? It isn't monetized. It's all free here, but if you do that. It actually just helps. Get the word out more people. Listen and it motivates me to continue. Doing the show. When we're growing. As an audience, thank you so much. I'll see you next week.