Is technology actually making us more productive?

Welcome to The Productivity Blueprint newsletter 🗞️

Two weeks ago, we delved into the effectiveness of time boxing for productivity. If you missed this edition, you can catch up here đź™‚

Today we will be discussing how we should be implementing technology for real productivity.

"The goal of technology is to help humans overcome limitations."

“Technology can bring benefits if, and only if, it diminishes a limitation.” - Eli Goldratt in his audiobook “Beyond The Goal”.

This article dives into the application of Eli’s theory, emphasizes that we must understand the true utility of a technology for reducing specific limitations rather than merely adopting new tools for their appeal.

It centre's around Goldratt's four critical questions that prompt users to think about the main power of the technology:

  • What is the main power of the technology?

  • What limitation does it diminish?

  • What rules helped us to accommodate the limitation?

  • What rules should we use now?

This approach seeks to enhance the real benefits of technological tools by aligning them more closely with organizational needs and obstacles. The key takeaway is that true effectiveness in adopting new technologies comes from critically assessing how they diminish existing limitations and tailoring their implementation with these insights.

TL;DR: The article focuses on using Eli Goldratt's framework to critically assess and adopt agile technologies that truly address and diminish organizational limitations, urging a thoughtful approach rather than following trends.

To honour the lesson of this article, we won’t be sharing any tools this week - but will challenge you to evaluate your use of them altogether 👀

đź’ˇ Challenge of the week

Apply Eli Goldratt's framework to assess and adopt technologies in your workflow. Ask yourself the 4 questions noted above and critically evaluate how these tools address specific limitations, rather than simply following trends.

That’s all for this newsletter! We hope this challenge to evaluate the technology you use has been insightful 👀

Until next week,

The Productivity Blueprint Team

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