The Drive-Thru Timer

Every operator has had this week. The plan arrives from somewhere above you. It is not unreasonable. It is not negotiable either, and the people who set it will see the board, not the store.

So you do what any competent manager does: you work the problem. You have eight decisions and eight weeks, and each one is the sort of call you have actually made — staffing, process, where to put the pressure. None of them are villainous. Several of them are the advice you would give someone else.

Most people make plan. That part is not hard, and it is not the interesting part. What the run is really recording is the cost of making it, which is not on the board.

Play it before you read anything else about it. It takes three minutes, it works on a phone, there is nothing to sign up for, and it tells you what it was doing at the end — after you have already done it. Being told first would spoil the only thing it has to offer.

If you have ever owned a number — a lead target, a handle time, an NPS, a velocity, a same-store sales figure — you already know the shape of this. You have probably also been on the other side of it, setting a target for people you cannot see, which is the harder half.

The 60-second film under the game is the same story compressed, for anyone who would rather watch than play. Watch it after, if you can bear to. It gives away in one minute what the game lets you find out for yourself.

If it lands, the useful thing to do is send it to whoever set your number. It argues better than an argument does, because the person on the other end gets to reach the end of it themselves.