Prioritising: how much time should be set aside for checking?
Checking is often treated as something to do with whatever time remains once the work is finished. The managerial question is more precise: should checking time be protected in the schedule, and how can a team assess whether this actually improves the work delivered?
What the literature establishes
Wayne A. Wickelgren (1977, Acta Psychologica) explains how the speed–accuracy tradeoff can be used to study the dynamics of information processing. In the experimental tasks concerned, assessing performance solely through speed can conceal a decline in accuracy. For time management, this finding cautions against treating a shorter processing time as sufficient evidence of improvement.
The mechanism: deciding with less information
Richard P. Heitz (2014, Frontiers in Neuroscience) reviews behavioural and physiological research on this tradeoff. In the evidence-accumulation models he examines, a faster response can result from a lower decision threshold rather than more efficient processing. Applied cautiously to administrative or technical work, this distinction prompts a question: has the work genuinely been simplified, or have people simply accepted making decisions with fewer checks?
The premature conclusion
It would be tempting to conclude that teams should always slow down or add more checks. Yet these studies establish neither the optimal duration of a professional review nor the value of every additional check. The appropriate balance depends, among other things, on the consequences of an error, how easily it can be detected and the cost of correcting it. (our executive and employee training programmes)
The limits of the evidence and current practice
The experimental tasks in this literature do not reproduce the preparation of an administrative decision, the validation of public health information or the inspection of a component. They therefore do not demonstrate that protecting a checking slot causally improves performance in these settings. Conversely, monitoring delivery time alone risks overlooking the rework required after the work has been handed over.
A practical check in Berne
As part of SHR's time management and prioritisation programme, a team in Berne could select a single category of deliverables: federal administration files, public health communications, telecom configurations or inspection documents in precision manufacturing. Over a two-week baseline period, followed by two weeks with an explicitly reserved checking slot, it would record checking time, deadline compliance, errors detected after delivery and rework time for each deliverable, using the same follow-up window. Regulatory and safety checks would remain unchanged, and the comparison would distinguish deliverables by complexity. This record would not, on its own, establish causality, but it would help assess whether an apparent gain in speed is being paid for locally through additional corrections. To go further: explore the Time Management & Prioritisation training in Bern, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Time Management & Prioritisation in Bern
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