Process-oriented or Result-oriented

This page is shared by one of my friends in his Google Reader. Mostly based on Parkinson's law that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". The author says a lot can be accomplished by keeping a fixed time schedule. He cites several examples from others and his own life to prove his claim. I do agree. I personally tend to work better if I am with certain constraints - in this case "the time". Better planning and organising makes the task easy to accomplish within a short time. I know a friend of mine who used to cook with just 2 vessels and a spoon. And he cooks rice, chicken, vegetable side-dish, dosa and what not! Constrained resources makes you use them as optimal as possible.

I still remember the days when I was working on optimizing video processing algorithms to be done in lesser number of cycles.

Over a period of time, you learn and become more creative in utilising the resources effectively.There is always a debate between the process-oriented and result-oriented. For long, people have advocated to be process-oriented and said that results will follow. If you achieve the results, no body questions the process unless it is totally non-agreeable, unethical, unlawful etc. Proponents of process oriented may say that it is the journey not the destination that gives satisfaction. I am of the opinion that the objective is different for different people. Some people get satisfaction in good execution and some people derive satisfaction in better results with minimal efforts.