The Cost of Switching: Project VS Transactional Work [DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCE] 

The cost of switching tasks is exponential when left unchecked. And in our BI diagnostics and analytics experience, most businesses leave this unchecked. What do we mean by switching cost? In short: the cost of switching (mentally, physically, emotionally even) from project-work to transactional-work and back. A brief story will help us illustrate: 

You and I work for a grocery store. You manage it, and I work the register. You walk in one morning and say, “Hey Michael, I think the display out front is terrible.”  

Me: “I agree. It needs a refresh.”

You: “Yeah, can you do that?” 

Me: “Of course!” 

I run away from my register to the other side of the store and then walk out front to figure out what I want to do first.  

When I walk back in, there’s an older gentleman waving at me from my register, so I wave back to be polite. I walk over to the inside door that goes into the display area, and I hear from across the way, “Excuse me. Do you work here?” I turn to see the same older gentleman at my register, a little non-plussed. 

You, my manager, appear as if out of nowhere and ask me, “What’s the matter with you? Why haven’t you helped that guy check out yet?” 

Me: “You literally just told me to go fix the display.”

You: “That’s when there are no customers here.” 

Me: “Oh.” I walk over to my register, a little crestfallen, key back into the register and begin to scan his five items. 

So let’s examine this:  

1. I had to walk from my register to the display outside. Then back in. Then walk back over to my register. Then log in.
   • • That is switching cost and it’s very, VERY real. It happens any time we have to reorient to a task. 
     • The bulk of switching cost in knowledge work is recontextualizing for the work at hand. You can’t just switch from reviewing marketing copy over to checking data trends in bounce rates for landing pages. Sure, they’re both marketing, but contextually they are profoundly different.
2. I will perform worse than my other register-working peers. 
   • • This is standard-breaking. I can’t be held to a productivity standard if you have me doing other things. 
     • The second you try to tell me that I am underperforming my peers, I will (in a defensive way) remind you that it was YOU who asked me to rework the display and that YOU cannot hold me to the same standard of output as my peers.  
3. I will take longer to rework the display. 
   • • This is a derivative of switching cost, but it’s a specific type of friction generated when you have a project that requires thought and design, not just the rote performance of practiced tasks. 
     • This is some of the worst kind of friction because the reset cost is massive. 
4. I’m not the biggest loser… You are. 
   • • The management, measurement, motivation, and even the philosophy of these two types of work is profoundly different, and you are setting yourself up for failure if you are trying to manage both types for one person well. 

In our diagnostics and analytics work, we ask this question (measure it across a whole team or company) because we know the homogeneity of the work lends to the efficiency and quality of the outputs. 

We look for people to have one type of work because otherwise they get into a space which will slow their growth, impact the customer (remember the older gentleman waiting at my register), frustrate the manager (you probably feel bad even reading this), and ultimately hurt the company. 

As business leaders, our power lies in helping our teams of people do their best for a primary workload (not to mention caring about their happiness while doing it). And, though this is admittedly not an easy fix when we see high numbers of people who have mixed work types, the first step to measurable improvement is awareness. 

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Want to learn the difference between Project and Transactional work, measure how well your business and people are doing in their roles, see actionable data, and then optimize performance and happiness? Get in touch.