The art of management is partly to select which of the possible analyses are significant, and to stop wasting time on minor matters of lesser importance. To that end, if you don't know, use and love Pareto's Law, you should.
Author Richard Koch has written two books on the wisdom of Vilfredo Pareto, who died in 1923. Koch's latest, The 80/20 Revolution (Nicholas Brealey), tells you, whatever your business, to search for just two numbers. Identify the 20% of activities that take 80% of the time: and then the 20% that account for 80% of total cost (they are often one and the same).
Take the 80% time-consumers and see how you can halve the time - then ask, is that exercise worthwhile in cost terms, and where will it lead? If encouraged by the answer, repeat the exercise three times. Hey presto! You're now using only 6% of the previous timespan, a massive 16-fold improvement. Now ask whether making these changes will significantly reduce costs or raise customer satisfaction (if not both). If the answer is Yes - well, do it!
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