Checklists, Procedures and Drudgery again

Young people do not come into the IT industry with the intention of following checklists and procedures which make their life a drudgery. There is obviously a need for standards when analysing, designing and implementing computer systems. For some reason, however, the IT industry is being coming more and more bureaucratic and is concerned more about controlling the people than the work. This is leading to a "long hours" and "do everything at the last minute" culture, which is stifling creativity, critical thinking, productivity and problem solving efficacy. No wonder our young systems designers and programmers are bored, disaffected, tired and overworked when a crisis crops up. And, unfortunately, the crises are now occurring too often.

Why can we not encourage a working environment where young people are allowed and encouraged to think for themselves within the parameters and limits of proven standards of working? If everyone one understands the engineering principles behind good IT practice they will then be able to act more responsibly. We as managers would then be able to delegate authority and responsibility to project team members to allow them to control their own work within the confines of a good project plan and in full co-operation with their fellow workers. Every one will then be part of a well organised team which knows what to do without being restricted and hidebound by too many unnecessary rules, check lists and processes. This will then be the route back to high quality delivery, high productivity and a healthier working environment for all. We might start enjoying ourselves at work again.

Check Lists, Procedures and Drudgery

I have spent a considerable amount of my career designing procedures for best methods of operation. Before computers were widely used it was important that clerical or manual methods of operation operated at optimal cost effectiveness. When computerisation was in its infancy we often conducted studies to compare the cost of the manual operations against computerisation. We delayed automation if it was more expensive to computerise an operation . This is not the case today but it might be educational to make such comparisons; even now.

I am surprised that we have not made further advances in removing paper from our computer procedures which still rely upon manual operations to a greater or lesser extent. The technology is certainly good enough, now, to completely automate many procedures. For instance, whilst it is possible to settle a credit card account by arranging a variable direct debit to clear the whole outstanding amount, it is not so easy for the customer when they want to settle a lesser amount. I am surprised that a decision based system has not been developed to allow the customer complete flexibility on an automated basis.

Manual operations still need to be used in spite of it being feasible to completely automate some business operations. And it looks as if this will be the case for the foreseeable future. The man machine interface, therefore, needs to made as efficient as possible by the use of effective procedures. But tight procedures quite often cannot cope with the out of the ordinary situation and militate against flexibility.

All organisations now have such tight procedures and checklists, which are used to control the man machine interface, that they deny flexibility to the human operators. This is apparent when you 'phone a call centre. As long as you are calling about a routine request the operator, at the other end of the 'phone, is able to cope adequately. If, however, you are making a call about a matter which falls outside of the rules or checklists, that govern the behaviour of the human being, the procedure often falls down. Often the call centre clerk then is unable to answer a request or enquiry as they do not know what to do. Even a supervisor might not be able to deal with events which fall outside of the system rules. It is, as if the human beings themselves have become "robots" who cannot cope outside of the check lists and pre-ordained processes. Systems designers and back office managers should take this into account when organising the work. The staff should not be treated as if they are automatons, and they should be allowed and encouraged to think for themselves so that they can become problems solvers. At little bit of creativity should be allowed to creep back into the system for the sake of both the customers and the workers.

Automated systems give us the opportunity to take the drudgery out of repetitive work and free us all up to do something more creative than just push buttons.

Further to the Feasibility Study

I was involved in two very interesting feasibility studies for a major American International Bank many many years ago.

For the first, the Bank was faced with applying Composite Rate Tax or Withholding Tax to the accounts of retail customers. I was the IT representative for the feasibility study and we also used some hard headed business managers. We calculated the cost of providing an automated solution and implementing it. We also calculated the cost of implementing a manual solution. We also considered the disruption to other projects. During the study the question was asked, what was the Bank doing in the business of retail banking? We quickly concluded that the best solution was to close the accounts of the few retail customers that the Bank had. It was simply the cheaper option and made sense from a business point of view. The customers were encouraged to open retail accounts with a British correspondent bank. The cost of the feasibility study was minimal and we were able to concentrate on the business and IT aspects of implementing our Global International Banking system.

For the second, the business was interested in automating the re-investment of funds which appeared on the Bank's books as a result of the errors of other Banks. This was a large sum of money even on a daily basis and there was profit to be made from re-investing money which was in error whilst the back office traced the rightful owner of the funds. I performed a feasibility study to decide whether it would be economic to completely automate a solution but at the time there were technical difficulties which made complete automation too costly. I recommended that we shelved the the solution pending future technical improvements. Two years later I was at a meeting where the issue was raised again and an IT colleague produced my report : it was now technically possible to go ahead with the proposals. The business made some calculations that it was also economic to proceed so we went ahead.

These two examples show how a good feasibility study can be used to good effect to produce cost effective and beneficial results.

The Feasibility Study

It is very difficult to complete a very good feasibility study. You are confronted, quite often, with inadequate business information to assess the value of a proposed new system or modification.

The feasibility study is all about evaluating the the proposed business benefits against the cost of their delivery. A new system should be able to deliver an adequate return on investment. The study should also examine the technical aspects of a proposed new system as it may not be possible to deliver the promised business benefits from an operational, throughput or timing point of view.

It is relatively easy to marshal and gather all the facts regarding the cost of implementing a new system or modification and it also easy to be tempted to ignore or reduce the cost of an item if it does not support the financial case. This temptation should be resisted strongly as no organisation is done a favour if the cost of a change outweighs the financial benefit.

The real difficulty comes in calculating the financial benefits as you are often operating in a vacuum. It is extremely difficult to even calculate productivity savings let alone the reduction of staff costs. It is more difficult to assess the financial benefit of improved customer service or a potential increase in market share or intangible benefits such as improved competitiveness.

Many management experts still apply the Pareto principle or the 80 20 rule when gathering management information: that is 20 percent of your time is used to obtain 80 percent of the information needed to make your decision. Therefore, it may not be cost beneficial or even possible, in a reasonable amount of time, to get to the 100 per cent certainty that you have gathered all the facts to make an objective decision.

Business managers, therefore, are acting more often than not upon sound judgement, instinct and intuition as much as the evidence gathered from facts. When assessing the business case experience, common sense and hard headed thinking are needed. Unfortunately most of this cannot be learnt from a text book or a prescribed list of procedures. You have to have the courage to trust your own judgement and operate fearlessly.

The decision makers must include business managers and clear thinkers who are able to critically examine all financial and operational proposals and tangible or intangible benefits. The decision makers must weed out understated costs and overstated benefits. They should also consider the implications of cost and time over runs.

Doing feasibility studies to recommend the most beneficial approach have been the most interesting and most difficult tasks that I have attempted in my career.