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Time and effort in projects: What's the difference?

In investigating how much "time and effort" my colleague and I exert when teaching online, we realized that we did not have a clear idea of the difference (if indeed there is a difference.) Any thoughts? When we evaluate our work in industry or the academy, do we mean "time" when we say "effort" or do we mean "time" plus added expenditure of energy or something else? Ideas and thoughts welcome!

BTW, our working hypothesis was that teaching online took more "time and effort" than teaching the same course face-to-face. We found that there is not a statistically significant difference except in one of four categories.

By leetesdell at 2008-06-03 14:41 | | | | | | | | leetesdell's blog | login or register to post comments | printer friendly version

Non-billable efforts

I find there are two and a half ways to treat non-billable efforts such as expanding skills or learning new tools, reading blogs or books, etc.

  1. Depending on the job, the customer and your relationship with him, it might be billable to buy and/or learn a new tool. For example, if you both agree that your using a new software will enable you to serve him more efficiently in future jobs. (It also helps to lock in the customer, because he's made an initial investment in your future with him...)
  2. If it's not billable, I guess you could account for such efforts in terms of general overhead. Just as a you have non-billable efforts and time spent on bookkeeping, you would (and maybe should) spend time on skills and general career advancement.
  3. The last "half a way", if all else fails, is to write it off as an investment in your own future - expanding your skill set will allow you to earn more, either by billing a higher rate and/or by working more efficiently...

From what I've seen in friends, diligence or neglect in these points makes the difference between self-employment and self-exploitation...

By kaiweber at 2008-06-07 03:34 | login or register to post comments

Time vs. effort

In my book, "effort" is the number of hours I spend (and bill) within the total duration of "time" it takes to complete a task or order. "Effort" is on the clock,"time" includes non-billable dead time, waiting for others, eating, sleeping. "Effort" defines the amount on invoice, "time" defines the date of the deadline. Your mileage may vary, Kai.

By kaiweber at 2008-06-03 23:26 | login or register to post comments

Interesting response

Thanks Kai for your response. This is helpful. I am also wondering about intellectual effort, for example, in learning something new such as new software. What is that? In other words time spent writing online help with a tool, say Author-it that I already familiar with, would be different from say doing the same online help project in Doc-to-Help, that I am unfamiliar with. Presumably it takes me more clock time to complete the task with new tools, but there is also the additional intellectual effort or energy that I put in to the new software that I must figure in to the overall picture (though not necessarily that I would bill a client for).

Lee S. Tesdell

By leetesdell at 2008-06-04 15:29 | login or register to post comments