Microsoft CEO Nadella: 'We will reinvent productivity'

Phone Man, post: 33837, member: 66 said:

I'm retired and trying to be as Unproductive as possible.

Jim

"Why". . .

Hi there

How do you "measure" productivity -- c'mon some of you overpaid I.T "Consultants" from places like Accidenture and the like - give us some real definitions instead of "US Management speak".

I suppose you'd come out with something bovine like counting the number of keystrokes done or lines of code written, but how do you measure "productivity" when I might have a 100% world shattering invention just by looking out of the windows with a nice glass of cold beer in my hand and THINKING quietly.

It amazes me when economists and others talk about "The productivity" of the work force -- how do you measure for example when people are doing purely admin jobs that are EVENT driven and therefore UNPREDICTABLE. For example if you process 5 Death certificates on a Monday, 7 on a Tuesday and 0 on a Wednesday - does that mean "productivity" is low on a wednesday in your office. I suppose you'd have to go out and ensure more people died on a Wednesday to "Improve productivity".

For non manufacturing processes productivity is almost impossible to give any serious meaning to - and even for manufacturing processes a lot can be done by purely mechanical means such as Robots.

In an extreme case is a Soldier less productive one week because in a combat zone he has KILLED nobody ?? --

The whole concept of "productivity" is outdated and needs re-defining. - If we are still basing our national policies on this old concept of productivity - we'll NEVER get our economics right.

I suppose the Germans might come up with something - Nr of Goals scored by their team in the entire world cup -- that WAS a productive team effort. !!

Congrats Deutschland -- yours was DEFINITELY the best team for the whole competition - even though on the night of the Final your team was a bit lucky that Messi amongst others missed a couple of absolute open goals that my Grandma could probably have scored with her eyes closed. !!

Cheers
jimbo