Who Ate Those Hours? Tracking the Team Without an Investigation.
Pudzian counts sets, Kokos counts margins. Together they discovered where the studio’s hours vanish. No, it wasn’t the cat this time.
KOKOS / SALESA STUDIO STORY
At the end of the month in our studio, the same question always came up: why did a project that was supposed to take forty hours take eighty? Suspicions fell on the cat. The cat had an alibi. The hours disappeared elsewhere.
Memory Is a Poor Spreadsheet.
Logging hours from memory on a Friday night is like guessing how many treats you ate all week. Everyone comes out looking better than they actually were. Kokos, as the sales department, doesn’t believe those results.
When work time is assigned to a project and phase in real-time, you can see where the effort actually goes. arkeeno can help pull it all together with the projects, instead of keeping it in a separate notebook with paw prints.
Pudzian and the Hidden Sets.
Pudzian discovered that his “quick fix” happened nine times a week. Twenty minutes each. That’s three hours—or in his book, one full leg day.
Such data isn’t for finding someone to blame. It’s for better pricing on the next project and honest conversations with the client about the scope of changes. Because a revision isn’t free just because it’s “tiny.”
Fair for the Team, Clear for the Client.
When you know who worked and for how long, it’s easier to settle up with the team and reward those who carried the project. Sometimes literally, in Pudzian’s case with the tile samples.
Kokos likes showing the client what they’re paying for. Not with a spreadsheet in his teeth, but with a clear summary. It turns out transparency sells better than even the glossiest render.
SIGNED BY
LEAD DESIGNER
[ KOKOS SAYS ]
“HOURS DON’T VANISH. THEY’RE JUST WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO FINALLY LOG THEM.”
