There are a couple of thoughts related to the cooking theme that have visited me lately .... a result of having to nurse an injured foot and so watching too much TV perhaps?

Anyway, has the efficiency of TV chefs ever amazed you and got you thinking about process efficiency and improvement? There is no doubt that the presenters manage to prepare any recipe in a flash and get a lot done in the kitchen in their allotted time .... certainly more than any home-cook could expect to achieve.

On closer inspection however, there are a few, somewhat obvious tricks that the TV shows use and I'm not just referring to the classic line: "Here's one I prepared earlier!" No, I found two main things that contributed to their speed and efficiency in whipping up lavish dishes in a few minutes:
1. All the ingredients were readily at hand
2. All bowls and utensils were out and ready to whip, chop, blend, dice ..... whatever was needed!

Even where there were no edits and the show was presented (pretty much) in real-time, it is the fact that everything is just there, right at their finger tips, that allows for massive productivity.
So the lesson I take away from this is that some activities/ processes are slow not because of anything intrinsically to do with the task itself. It is slow because of the logistics that needs to support the performance of the task. This will be nothing new to those familiar with managing or coordinating manufacturing processes where the supply chain can naturally become a key, limiting aspect of production .... but those of us who are knowledge workers often forget resource and other dependencies need to be managed before a particular activity can be performed efficiently.

Process definition that does not take into account the supporting tasks (take out the ingredients, assemble and plug in the blender, etc.) will not be fully representative of what has to be done ..... and therefore may miss opportunities for improvement. Having spent a large part of the weekend looking for a presentation that I had done a few years ago, I can attest to the time wasted in simply gathering the elements needed to do/make/cook-up something new.