Is productivity actually slowing us down? A look at the value-add vs. activity trap.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is to confuse being busy with making progress.

In a lot of engineering projects, we tend to stack activities, thinking that more output equals more value. But honestly, how much of that is just noise? I’ve seen teams optimise the hell out of a process step that shouldn't even exist in the first place.

It feels like the real challenge in 2026 isn't just working faster; it’s having the guts to identify and eliminate non-value activities.

A few things I’ve been trying to focus on:

• Cutting the ghost steps: If an activity doesn't directly improve the outcome, why are we still doing it?
• Engineering for Impact: Shifting the focus from how many hours this takes to how much this actually improves efficiency?
• Smarter Execution: Streamlining the process before you even think about scaling it.

I'm curious for those of you in manufacturing or systems design: what’s the biggest "non-value" activity you’ve managed to kill in your workflow recently? Are we getting better at identifying these, or just getting faster at doing useless work?