Lazy people are awesome! Here's why.

*This post is written by Haw-San Au-Yong, Principal Consultant, Edits Inc*

Let me say first this post is somewhat unrelated to what we do, but is a classic example of how our (totally awesome) operations efficiency skills are applied in a weird way. 

Yesterday morning, a group I'm in had a big event. The 30 members in the group invited over 60 guests to experience what it's like to be part of our group. There were close to 100 people in total, seated across several clusters of rectangular tables in a good-sized auditorium. 

In a typical meeting, there is a segment where each guest is given a time limit to introduce themselves. Obviously, in a large auditorium like this, microphones are necessary for everyone to hear each other clearly. 

And in order to keep this segment short, we had to devise a strategy for passing the mic around (see above). Why? Because if it took 15 extra seconds for one person to sit down, pass the mic he's holding to the next person (imagine a "you first", "no, you first" scenario), and then for the next person to fumble while taking over the mic, push back his chair, check if the mic was on, BEFORE he/she even says a word, we would have added 25 minutes to an already-lengthy 2.5 hour meeting.

NOT GOOD. Why? Because our guests would want to get back to their work and their stomachs are probably waiting for the breakfast, which was to be served AFTER the meeting was over. Time was very much of the essence here. 

The best thing was, in the process of passing the mic, I could say a few words to the guests (who are unfamiliar with this self-introduction segment) to warn them about the finicky mic and also to sift out guests who were too shy to introduce themselves (typical Asian thing). This saved us a lot of "not me, not me" time-gobblers when the mic were being passed. **pats on the back**

Anyway, I thought of writing this post because hours later, it dawned upon me that that choreographing the mic-passing sequence was a total occupational hazard. Somehow the sequence presented itself clearly in my head without really giving it any thought at all (I'm not saying this to boast). It was a total revelation, because it reminded me of why we industrial engineers are so quirky - we love tinkling with processes so that we use the least amount of time to finish an activity. Or in short, lazy people are awesome!!! *insert rock out hand sign* 

So in case any curious souls out there are interested, here is the hopscotch mic-passing process that I devised and implemented. 

And in case anyone has a similar event in the future, give it a try! A word of warning though - loads of walking involved for the person who is doing the job of passing the mics around.