This is a really valuable technique in analysing what you do: break it down into small components and treating each component in a subtly different way.
We have already mentioned 'tasks' and 'activities' in TM4T, and how they are handled: we will establish a routine at the start of the year which caters for non-teaching activity of different kinds; we will routinely jot down tasks as they arise (using a Tick-List); and we will carry out those tasks according to how big they are.
What we haven't done yet is clarify what we mean by a 'task', and what the difference is between an 'activity' and a 'task'. Both these words have specific meanings in the context of planning and time management, and in order to understand them we need to discuss the concept of Work Breakdown Structures, which is used in various forms in Business Analysis and Human Relations.
The basic idea is that we should break down each piece of work that we do (for example 'lesson preparation for GCSE Spanish') into its component parts (for example 'brainstorm lesson ideas', 'photocopying', 'PowerPoint work', etc). In this example, 'brainstorm lesson ideas for GCSE Spanish', 'photocopying for GCSE Spanish' and 'PowerPoint for GCSE Spanish' are examples of tasks.
By doing this, we identify two kinds of 'activities' – groups of similar tasks.
a) Firstly we identify tasks which are effectively identical, or greatly similar. In the example above, photocopying for GCSE Spanish is no different to photocopying for A-Level French; we can obviously gain economies of scale by doing all the photocopying together, or getting someone else to do it for us.
b) Secondly we identify tasks which - though different - require similar skills and mental outlook. In the example above, brainstorming lesson ideas is likely to involve creativity and alertness, while most of us can prepare a PowerPoint presentation while we feel tired and dull. For most teachers, it's therefore sensible to do the brainstorming early in the day, along with other creative work, and chug out the presentations after lunch. By scheduling the right kind of tasks at the right time, we can maximise our effectiveness.
In operations management, the concept of integration is also particularly important - this means that we do not just look at tasks and activities separately or individually, we look at an entire process. This often means working backwards from a final deliverable (for example, a lesson), and identifying the preceding tasks, in a similar way to any explorer following the branches of a river. back from the sea to identify its source/s. In doing this, we frequently identify processes which are carried out repeatedly, in a cycle. If this happens - and it happens very frequently in teaching - we should try to integrate the previous-current-next iterations into a seamless cycle of repetition. This may seem very abstract and woolly, but we will tackle a real example very shortly.
If a process is not cyclical, then it logically must have a beginning and an end. The information must start off from somewhere - this place is known as a source. Equally it must end somewhere - this place is known a sink. Souces and sinks all involve work and stress for a teacher, and in later chapters we will be looking at how to minimise or remove them from your life.
One other concept which affects teachers lives is that of a trigger. A trigger is an event which kicks off a process.
If we pull some of these contexts together - identified from our work breakdown structures, we are ready to think about data flow diagrams.