Broken Technology

Broken Technology

You would think that as an IT manager, I would have a lot of say into the technology that makes my company tick.  Unfortunately the reality is that most of the large systems you will ever implement as CIO or IT Manager, you will have very little say in.

This week was a great example.  Our HR department wanted to streamline the processing of certain forms that need to be filled out on an annual basis.  Historically, those forms were filled out during a conversation between the manager and the staff member.  Both sides discussing the issues and then agreeing to the content.  If subsequent edits were required, the forms might be passed back and forth after the meeting until both sides sign off.  The core of all these forms is that we are supposed to have a conversation where we work out the details and ultimately agree to what was being said.

Once it was all done, the forms are submitted to HR to be filed away forever.  HR felt this was an inefficient process for them since they had all that filing to do, and when someone did want to check the forms they could rarely find them.  So like everyone these days they went out and found a web based  system that could take care of this for them.

Unfortunately the system can not replicate the business process that was followed before.  Under the new process, the individual now fills in the form and it is submitted to their manager electronically, the manager reviews and/or changes the form and then sends it back.  This goes on until it is marked final and HR gets their copy filed away electronically.

Anyone catch what is missing?  Yup, the new process gets rid of the conversation.  Remember the whole basis for this process, isn’t the paperwork.  The paperwork was ultimately just a vehicle so that the manager and their staff can agree to direction and importance on a number of issues.  By changing the process to being about the paperwork, the whole reason for the paperwork is removed and the process that was difficult to start with is now felt to be irrelevant and treated as such by everyone.

While manager and staff alike had a distaste for the conversions to start with, (Key Performance Indicators, performance reviews, career development), at least during a conversation there is the possibility to be heard and get your point of view across.  Regardless of what was put on paper, the manager and the staff member came to a mutual understanding.  So in the end HR has used technology to take a flawed and disliked process and make it worst.

That folks, is why you need business systems analysis.  Before you change something, you need to look at it from all sides, document it and make sure you know what you want to change and why.

SAAS may be great in terms of the ability to implement quickly, but any system still needs to meet the existing business process OR you need to redesign the business processes BEFORE you start implementing the system to achieve the desired results.  Failure to do so, simply makes bad processes faster, not better.