Unfortunately the idea of peering over your desk and seeing your staff busy meant that you were doing "okay" is no longer valid - if indeed it ever was! In the current economic environment of salary inflation and Fee stagnation costs are edging seriously close to fees. The only option to counter this is efficiency. Efficiency in staff utilisation project utilisation, Project utilisation is ensuring that we are only working on what we are being paid to do - and no more. One of the first questions is "do your staff know the brief", and does that brief contain only what the fee allows for. How can you expect your staff to flag a possible variation if they don't know what the fee covers? Unfortunately I have had too many conversations about over budget projects where, on further investigation there has been work carried out that should have been charged for, or not done!. The starting point is information. Information on the Fee, the scope, and progress. The core of this information is time. If you can't measure it, you cant control it ! Do time sheets regularly!