E-Mail Waste

I want you to think about one of the newer types of wastes
in Office Processes - that of e- mail waste.

E -mail  waste -  What is it ?

In a recent edition of the "Times" there was a short article indicating that there are now 60 billion
e-mails sent every day.

Yes you heard me right - 60 billion.

Fortunately not all of them are sent to you!

Although, I guess it sometimes feels like that.

Much of the e-mail sent around the world is called spam.

I define spam as receiving an e-mail that you didn't ask for, with irrelevant information
that takes up your valuable time.

This usual type of spam is filtered out for us by our friends in the IT department. 
We never get to see it.

That is a good thing.

Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that "internal spam" happens every day in our Organisations.

There is no "Why on earth did you send this Information to me?" filter on our e-mail in boxes.

Whether you are a victim of internal spam or even worse a sender of internal spam I think you should
read on...

E-mail waste to me, is e-mail that is sent out to recipients that adds no discernable value
to them.

On every kaizen course I facilitate, irrelevant e-mails comes up as a major time waster for individuals.

And I mean on every course.

Not occasionally - every time.

Here are some of my favourite e-mail time wasters

The one I particularly find the most heinous is what I call the chain e-mail.

We all receive them:

	Someone e-mails some information.
	Someone replies to the sender with a different cc list.
	Someone else then comments on that reply.

Meanwhile the e- mail is either going up the chain of command, down the chain of command
or sideways across a peer group.

The e-mail is now onto its 4th recipient and has no sign of abating.

Oh, and by the way, the original topic of the original message has moved onto a new topic with very
little to do with the original.

"You" eventually receive the e-mail.

Being the diligent person that you are, you are forced to read through every boring irrelevant bit of
information just in case you are mentioned and have been asked to do something.

What a waste of everyone's time.

The other thing that can happen is that what was semi confidential information cc'd to the original list
ends up several iterations later in the wrong hands.

I personally think that no e-mail should be allowed to be passed on more than once !

My second favourite wasteful e-mail is the cc everyone e-mail

There is no consideration as to whether the people on the "list" need the information
or not - because you're on the list you get it.

What happened to coco tins and string?

As BT famously said "it's good to talk"

Why don't some people try it some time?

In waste mail world the 80/20 rule is alive
and kicking.

80% of e-mails come from 20% of people in the Organisation.

Don't waste your time or other people's time !

Let's all fight back against the wasteful use of e-mail.

Here's what to do

If you are getting lots of wasteful e-mails.

Do this as a one off exercise.

Look through your in box of e-mails.
Count the wasted time on unnecessary
information sent to you.

Tell the time wasters in a caring sharing way.

If you are a Serial E-mailer....

Really think about what you are doing.

Do you really need to e-mail - could you phone instead?

Have you thought about the consequences of your e-mail?

The cost to the organization of your communication will be the number of people
on the cc list x the time it takes each individual to read it and spend time interpreting it.

	Why are you actually writing the e-mail?
	Who is it for? Is the cc list really appropriate?
	KISS - Keep it short and simple

Are you adding value to the recipient?

Think before you cause in box havoc!

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Graham Ross

Back to Lean Kaizen Welcome Page from E-mail Waste article

Get free Lean Kaizen Toolkit

Back to Lean Kaizen Articles

Get Graham Ross's New Book Tools for Success here :