By Naked CIO, 1 December 2008 09:00
COMMENT
Applications that were meant to make business users more productive have instead turned them into mere button pushers. It's time to change that, says the Naked CIO.
The age of intuitive and seamless software applications has spawned an android population of business users who can no longer think or maintain business operations effectively. More and more when they need to change a business process, they look to IT to help them articulate and navigate changes.
However, this was never the concept of seamless systems that can automate processes. The concept was to make computing more effective and cut out laborious processes that bottleneck productivity. Most effective up-to-date applications are rules-based, data-intuitive - and drive business functions based on logical processing rules.
I now wonder if that was a good idea. By having applications configured to handle business rules and account for the intellectual capital of making decisions, business users are becoming less capable of understanding core functions of the job they do.
The best analogy or example I can think of is GPS navigation. Thanks to the technology users can no longer find their way around on their own - and if they move house or travel they expect the system to give them directions.
I have been on a power trip recently to rid my departments of administrative processes we have inherited from business units at some point in time for no particular reason. Functions that are clearly non-technical and material not to IT but to the business had embedded themselves in day-to-day work practices of the IT department. We have seemingly become the catch-all department for anything that uses a computer and that no one else wants to do.
When I try to offload these administrative functions back to the business, it is unbelievable the push-back and tension this causes. While no one wants to take ownership of these functions the only clear certainty is they have no business being in IT. For example recently I tried to offload the set up of credit card merchant accounts. This created an international incident of enormous proportions - yet no one could provide a valid argument for why my staff were performing this function.
This is just one of the many functions I have battled to offload in recent months. The standard argument is that there is no one else to perform the task and the business doesn't know how to do it.
So is technology dumbing down users to the extent that all they know how to do is push buttons? Are we becoming a slave to technology because of its convenience and not treating it as a tool that can make us smarter and more effective at our jobs?
How can we possibly move our businesses forward with a battalion of button pushers that have no capacity to think?
And when thought is required, even if it has nothing to do with IT, somehow the function gets absorbed into our departments, depreciating our true effectiveness in dealing with IT issues and impacting the perception of the value of our real services.
It is yet another example of the 'bottom feeder' mentality of the business towards the IT function. We are the janitorial closet of our company - we clean up every mess, IT or otherwise. I am in the process of specifically defining what IT should and shouldn't do, to make it clear to our users that dumping problems and administrative functions to IT because they don't want to do it is no longer acceptable.
It is time to stop mopping up after our business colleagues and require them to do more than push buttons. Perhaps taking ownership of their own functions where they should be experts could actually bring more value to the business.
As for us CIOs, don't be tricked into thinking you are 'empire building' when really you are taking on functions your staff have no right or capability to absorb.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard
Sounds like the current government:
Na? belief that the answer to every complex social problem is to buy yet another IT database;
... and form yet another expensive quango to administer it.
2. Radical Meldrew
Yes technology has indeed made us reliant on various IT driven reporting processes and mechanisms. This was acceptable at the time of its introduction....most people understood the process before IT took over these tasks. A few years down the line however, we get box ticking, button pushers who now have no requirement to understand the process other than 'do this every morning' and everything will be fine. When it suddenly isn't fine.....panic ensues.
As you suggested - IT is an aide to, not a replacement of, the human factor. We should always strive to maintain the capability to manually intervene and add a contingency plan to the overall process to prevent any IT dependency which is a single point of failure. Unfortunately modern day management have short-sightedly taken this option away by deliberately deploying poorly trained staff because they are cheap and easy to keep under control. When their technological crutch gives way there is a resigned no can do attitude from almost everyone, "It's broke and IT are working on it...OK?" is all you get from the button pushers and "Let's wait and see, I think we can trust IT to deliver" from management. IT and their systems instantly become the scapegoat when in fact it's the lack of forethought from the business administrators that really should be taking the bulk of the criticism.
3. Stuart Fawcett
It seems that IT implemented processes give users the opportunity to forget what their doing and why they are doing it. Their KPI’s become numbers out of a black IT box whose detail is lost in complexity when drilling down into the detail. IT may offer BI tools but only when the middle managers understand how primary entities are related will they understand what IT tools can offer to the business. You’d think that our new tech savvy generation would not be afraid of the technical building blocks of business but mention a modelling language and the audience shrinks to zero. Local process owners are perhaps the key to keeping the knowledge in the business.
With the right IT & BI our strategic directors should be able to see what-if scenarios, Managers should be able to see inefficiencies, and end users the impact of their work. It’s my privilege to work with CxO’s who understand how to use the tools available. Owning a sports car is great but if the 1st corner leaves you at the back of the field maybe you should take the time to lean how to drive it well rather than just being traffic in the business world waiting for the AA guy to help you out.
4. Drew Stephenson
tech hasn't made us dumber it's just allowed us to be lazier. And then the cost cutting comes round; why employ skilled people who understand the product if the system has all the rules in it already? Fire all those expensive skilled people and hire some cheap button pushers. What do you mean the system needs to be updated? We can't do that, we don't know how it works...
I'd be surprised if there's any business that isn't either going through this or hasn't been through it.
The depressing thing is working for a company that goes through it again and again and again...
5. Simon Allen
I agree with the article 100%
I agree with the replies thus far.
Nothing is gonna change anytime soon.
The myth of DP/IT efficiency has been around since it was invented and the Boards/MDs like the glitz. True - they don't like the reality but they manage to look the other way.
They like the ability to dumb down staff and get everything done by buttons. Why?
1) It makes more money - on paper.
2) It saves the bosses from having t know anything about the biz. They can just pretend to know.
The small companies that use modern IT sensibly? Few and fare between but they will make progress.
My guess is that the ones who will see IT in it's place and not reply upon it too heavily are, now, about five years old. So, give them time.
That is because IT is so very, very young. Just think about how long it took the Telegraph and Telephone to mature into biz?
So, I shall not see this in my life time.
6. Mick Grigg
You raise some interesting points, which spawn some more. You could argue outsourcing front-line business staff has also contributed to the same effect - splitting IT with its core system users has not only permanently lost the user experience and intellectual property to an external company, that company has its own agenda and you can bet the ongoing business intelligence property of your company is not it.
In addition, whilst automation was meant to free us up for (I wont say more time at the beach) other things, it seems we choose to use the time to make our systems even more complicated; we are 'driven' to heap more components and couple multi-technology solutions together to perform an even greater number of tasks. I'm beginning to think there will never be an end to this revolution. Its tied too much to our own 'driven' nature.