More people, more time – my Christmas wish list

By November, another pair of hands and a few extra weeks can look like the answer to everything. There is work to finish before Christmas, someone has left, and several projects need the same people. Do we recruit, engage external help or move the deadline?

Before asking for more people or more time, we need to establish whether the work is genuinely important, whether it can wait, and what is actually preventing progress.

Are the next steps clear? Is there genuinely nobody available to do the work? If the team keeps revising the scope, waiting for decisions or receiving conflicting instructions, another person could spend December waiting too.

This matters when comparing true costs. A salary or consultant’s fee is visible. The cost of unresolved decisions is harder to see. Repeated work, idle specialists, delays and senior staff returning to the same issues all add to the time and cost of complete tasks.

When building internal capability makes sense

Consider a water corporation preparing business cases and supporting evidence for a price submission.

Technical staff understand the assets, but coordinating evidence and developing investment options is stretching the team. Temporary help could get the submission finished.

If that workload will continue through future investment programs, however, there may be a stronger case for developing someone internally or recruiting an ongoing role.

A useful test is whether the organisation can describe the work that person would own after the submission or task is complete. Would they maintain the evidence, coordinate future business cases and help teams prepare better investment proposals? Is there enough continuing work, and would the person have the management support needed to be effective?

An imminent deadline may still require temporary assistance. That support can also help establish a consistent approach and transfer knowledge to the person taking responsibility.

The aim should be to leave the organisation better equipped for the next investment cycle, not simply to get through the current one.

When external experience offers better value

Now consider a council project that has stalled after an experienced employee’s departure.

Several consultants are involved, the scope keeps changing and nobody is clear about which decisions need to go to the executive or council.

Recruiting a replacement may be necessary. But handing the unresolved project to a new employee also gives them the job of untangling it while learning the organisation.

Targeted external support could help establish what remains to be decided, bring the relevant people together and agree who is responsible for the next steps.

That requires an accountable internal sponsor and access to the people authorised to make decisions. An adviser can prepare the choices and coordinate the work, but council still needs to make and own those decisions.

The engagement should also have a clear handover point, so staff inherit an understood project with usable records and agreed responsibilities. The value is in helping the organisation regain clarity and move forward, not additional capacity.

What are we buying?

Before approving a position or consultancy brief, ask:

• What specific work or decision is waiting?
• Would another person be able to progress it now?
• Will the need continue after this deadline?
• Who will own the work and retain the knowledge afterwards?

Then compare the full cost of the available options, including recruitment, supervision, delay, rework and handover.

Sometimes the right answer will be another employee. Sometimes it will be targeted external experience. Sometimes the deadline needs to move, or the work needs to be reconsidered altogether.

The important thing is to understand what is holding up progress before committing more resources.

My Christmas wish is still for more time. But I’d settle for spending less of it on work that didn’t need to be done.