by Lee Fried, on 10 Oct 2006 10:06 am
The Journey
Stuck on the System
How quickly we get caught up and frustrated by the limitations of our IT systems. This was my key learning from last week after spending many hours walking through a maze of Administrative processes. Almost every staff member and manager that I talked to had a wish list of IT fixes and a longer list of IT problems. In this age of computer technology we have layered over almost every one of our Administrative processes with automation and work flow software. So much so that the associates doing the work are often unaware of the true nature of the work that they are doing or what connection it has to our members and patients.
As I sat with staff they would constantly point out the flaws of the system and describe how much more productive they would be if the system only allowed them to do something. We get so used to following the work flow that the computer lays out for us that we have forgotten to ask why are doing much of the work in the first place. Rather then question the work itself, we end up questioning the way that the system is designed and when no IT resources are available to make the fix we simple get frustrated and stop questioning all together. As we begin to redesign our processes around Value Streams it will be interesting to see how much of this software that primarily exist to pass work between departments will no longer be needed. I hope all of it….
on 10 Oct 2006 at 3:20 pm 1.Matt Meyers said …
Resource allocation is certainly an issue. For another point of view, though, I work in a large company, and for a long time there were many problems with IT. I think one large source of problems was that the IT organization considered itself a standards group, instead of being a service provider. The difference is that a “standards group” decides how things will be done, and then everyone else has to work around within that standard. A “service provider” looks at the rest of the company as their customer, and works accordingly to satisfy those needs. Our IT group improved significantly once I saw this customer focus emerge.
on 10 Oct 2006 at 6:14 pm 2.Lee Fried said …
Matt,
I would argue that true break through results will occur when an organization has only one customer, the end customer and even IT works toward supporting them. I my experience, when IT looks at other internal departments as their customer there are many issues that arise around prioritization, politics and unfair resource allocation. With only one customer, it is easier to build alignment between production and supporting departments.
Just some thoughts,
Lee