In computers, parallel processing is the processing of program instructions by dividing them among multiple processors with the objective of running a program in less time.
TechTarget
.
Vision of the future
Computer processors haven’t actually got much faster since the early 2000s. The speed of an average computer’s CPU has hovered around 3 billion cycles per second (think about that for a minute) since the Pentium 4 in 2002.
Computers as a whole, though, have got a lot faster. This is in large part because of parallel processing – more processing units doing different jobs in parallel.
CPUs often have six cores where they used to have one. High-end graphics cards – processing high resolution graphics is about the most intensive work most computers do – can have thousands. And you’ll need them to run a 4K computer display (8 million-plus pixels) at 100 frames-per-second: each pixel requires a complicated set of calculations to determine its colour.**
Get with the program
We often call the things our organisations do ‘programs’ too. One way of looking at your team is a system running a set of instructions that together make up your ‘program’. You take your inputs, the system runs, and the combination of all the operations (a successfully operated ‘program’) creates a desired result.
There’s lots that you can do to improve a system like this – simplify or improve the quality of the inputs, write a more efficient set of instructions or script for each operation (having a script at all is a good start), identify and cut out unnecessary steps – and all of these things will make you more productive, and your life easier.
Once you’ve got good scripts, you can hand off parts of the operation to other people, and give yourself more time to focus on the intensive processing – and this will help a lot too, if you do it right.
But you’re a bottleneck. Everything. Still. Comes. Through. You.
The people you really need to find are people with the ability and the will to shoulder an entire area of activity – a whole process – entirely independently.
You decide what needs to happen and leave them with it. Pow. Now you can do something else – something entirely different – at the same time.
You’re parallel processing.
** = with apologies if I’ve completely murdered the technical analogy. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.