Moe's SOA & BPM Blog
My informed ramblings on making SOA & BPM work for you.
Some of these come from my infamous but now defunct Alphacourt blog.
Thursday 26 February 2009, 8:53 AM
The Problem with People
There is the assumption that the behaviour of people involved in a business process is predictable and consistent. Too many business analysts (mainly Dark Knights –see earlier blog) still expect a manual process step to be carried out by staff in the same way, over the same period of time, with the same outcome, regardless of the context in which the are working. I’m not talking here about process constraints or business rules, I’m talking about some of the irritatingly human foibles that blight the best laid plans of (computer) mice and men.
For instance, imagine you are a call centre agent (don’t mock, this could you be soon too) faced with a new ‘improved’ customer service screen to enter their phone call actions. Last week you had a nice green 3270 character-based screen where you could type and tab through each screen in less time than the call took. Your shiny new screen has been WIMP’d (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers) so that you now click directly on the relevant field and pick from a predetermined list of outcomes ‘to make your job easier’. As Any Fule Kno (anyone who has done data entry) a good typist will fly through the green screen faster than you can say ‘computer says no’. Point and click screens require advanced spatial awareness to master (something the sat-nav generation never picked up), and then make it difficult to use by restricting choices to a scrolling drop down list that never fits what you want to say.
Surprisingly, these staff are expected to produce the same output in the as quick (or quicker) than before. In practice the time increases, or the quality goes down or, more likely, both. This doesn’t seem logical to the Vulcans who have designed this new process, but to the humans remaining it can be all too obvious.
Sadly, there is still too little user input in the requirements gather for process and system change that takes place. Even in the highly vaunted Six Sigma and Lean Management methods and practice, there is still an (unspoken) assumption that the staff are just automatons that don’t need to worry their pretty heads about how the process should work because the Black Belts know better and will condescend to show them best practice.
Typically the requirements are agreed with the departmental manager who has only the vaguest idea about how the work is actually done. The manager may understand inputs and outputs for their part of the process, but they probably don’t know about Doris ringing accounts hourly to sort another badly keyed order to ensure it gets processed.
So don’t look surprised when you tell your staff of the marvellous new system that you are putting to help them is met with less than total enthusiasm. You are not helping them, you are just changing one unsuitable system (for which they had figured out the workarounds) for another unsuitable system (that is broken in different ways that will take them weeks to work around).
The V-signs you are getting behind your back are not for Victory…
John “Robbie the Robot” Moe
For instance, imagine you are a call centre agent (don’t mock, this could you be soon too) faced with a new ‘improved’ customer service screen to enter their phone call actions. Last week you had a nice green 3270 character-based screen where you could type and tab through each screen in less time than the call took. Your shiny new screen has been WIMP’d (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers) so that you now click directly on the relevant field and pick from a predetermined list of outcomes ‘to make your job easier’. As Any Fule Kno (anyone who has done data entry) a good typist will fly through the green screen faster than you can say ‘computer says no’. Point and click screens require advanced spatial awareness to master (something the sat-nav generation never picked up), and then make it difficult to use by restricting choices to a scrolling drop down list that never fits what you want to say.
Surprisingly, these staff are expected to produce the same output in the as quick (or quicker) than before. In practice the time increases, or the quality goes down or, more likely, both. This doesn’t seem logical to the Vulcans who have designed this new process, but to the humans remaining it can be all too obvious.
Sadly, there is still too little user input in the requirements gather for process and system change that takes place. Even in the highly vaunted Six Sigma and Lean Management methods and practice, there is still an (unspoken) assumption that the staff are just automatons that don’t need to worry their pretty heads about how the process should work because the Black Belts know better and will condescend to show them best practice.
Typically the requirements are agreed with the departmental manager who has only the vaguest idea about how the work is actually done. The manager may understand inputs and outputs for their part of the process, but they probably don’t know about Doris ringing accounts hourly to sort another badly keyed order to ensure it gets processed.
So don’t look surprised when you tell your staff of the marvellous new system that you are putting to help them is met with less than total enthusiasm. You are not helping them, you are just changing one unsuitable system (for which they had figured out the workarounds) for another unsuitable system (that is broken in different ways that will take them weeks to work around).
The V-signs you are getting behind your back are not for Victory…
John “Robbie the Robot” Moe
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