Once you’re started your journal, you will start to think about efficiency more and more. This is normal. Most processes feel “right” on paper, but when the rubber meets the road you might find that some parts of a plan don’t quite work.
Every business has to face moments where the best laid plans simply don’t work out very well. Maybe a plan that seemed intuitive turns out to be very convoluted. Perhaps a system that worked perfectly for five employees suffers greatly when there are ten. Whatever the case might be, it’s important to be able to sit back and look at your processes to look for more efficient ways of doing things. Efficiency can help businesses thrive.
What is efficiency?
Efficiency, simply, is wanting to achieve a target or specific outcomes using the least amount of effort as possible.
Achieving these goals with the least amount of effort can be calculated in many different ways. From the perspective of many businesses, a more efficient process means that resources are saved. These resources are almost always tethered to finances.
A project being done more quickly means that less hours are spent on it. This means that the project “cost” less. A more effective peer review process means that less time is spent trying to process manuscripts. More manuscripts being processed in less time is a financial boon for a fledgling journal. While efficiency almost always winds up connected to financial elements of your company, they do have vastly different manifestations.
All companies have resources available to them, and your journal is no different. There are two resources that matter more than anything else though: time and money.
Time
It has been said that time is the only non-replenishable resource. You have 24 hours in a day, and, after today, you can’t get it back. This is one of the reasons why efficiency is so important. The number of hours you have to do any project is ultimately limited. As such, that means that being as efficient as you can be with your time translates directly into how much you can get done.
While time cannot be recovered if wasted, money can “buy” more time in the sense that you can hire more employees to get jobs done. But there is a balancing act that needs to occur between how much time and money get spent.
Money
Money is simultaneously the most powerful resource and the biggest weakness. On the one hand, money directly (and indirectly) translates to being able to achieve many goals. On the other hand, it is limited. Especially as a smaller journal. Being careful with your company’s finances is crucial. If you spend too much money, and accrue too much debt, your company may not recover. If you do not spend enough money, you might find that you are not meeting necessary targets. This, in turn, can lead to your company failing to meet necessary goals. This could negatively impact your reputation, or in the worst case scenario, lead to your journal failing.
Careful management of your company’s financial resources can be the difference between success and failure.
What is operational efficiency?
Operational efficiency is when a company (or your journal in this case) aims to minimize its costs but increase its output. These costs and outputs vary from company to company. However, in a journal’s case, we might be talking about minimizing time and maximizing the number of manuscripts that are processed.
These can be viewed in a broad context, or it can be analyzed on smaller scales. Depending on your approach, you can find savings of time and money in many different situations.
What about editorial efficiency?
Editorial efficiency differs from standard operational efficiency in that it looks at specific stages in the editorial process. For example, when sending a manuscript out for peer review, there are many approaches a company can take.
For example.
Suppose that you are currently tracking potential peer reviewers in an Excel spreadsheet. You can use the search function to track down key words or names. You can try and keep the list alphabetical. As you are following up with individuals, you can create a separate list for the manuscript in question. Then update the main list to indicate that a peer reviewer has been invited recently.
Or you can use a journal management system to automate this sort of process. This will allow you to receive notifications and have the system notify you of important details. These systems are based on the idea of efficiency. But there’s a cost.
Money.
And so the question then becomes “which is more important? Time or money?”
The editorial process
All processes are prone to inefficiencies. A great manager can help identify these weaknesses and find solutions to those issues. This doesn’t mean that all problems can be fixed. But most can be. And looking at different tools and options to improve your editorial processes can be greatly beneficial.
Remember, relying on the skills of others is critical. And using their experience to improve your editorial process is a great idea.
But sometimes, getting a system to help you get more done can be as valuable as hiring a dozen employees. Efficiency comes in different forms, and it’s important to be able to identify what helps and what doesn’t.