WHY SYSTEMS DON'T WORK AND CONSULTANTS DON'T HELP

Q: Briefly, what is PSM?
A: Procedural Strip Mining (PSM) uncovers and analyzes existing processes and procedures within the client's environment that, unknown to the client, reflect either (a) workarounds or (b) undocumented requirements being met outside published work descriptions. PSM is a process that results in increased productivity and reduced operating costs.  It can also result in increased employee satisfaction. 

Q: Why do companies change systems?
A: Generally, because management views them as obsolete, inefficient and outgrown, or at risk of becoming so.  Unfortunately, the same management frequently fails to reassess the real work that must be done by the new system. It bases the system decision on past processes, past performance, and historical objectives, on efficiency, rather than effectiveness.

It emphasizes performing tasks correctly, but faster, rather than validating that they are the right tasks to begin with, and completely failing to ask which tasks will (still) be worth doing at all.

Q: Does management or IT make these decisions on its own?
A:Not completely. This perspective is fueled by vendors who tout their newest systems as being (substitute your preferred adjectives) lighter, heavier, faster, bigger, smaller, more physical, more virtual, etc.

Most Consultants (and IT staff) will typically agree that the proposed systems indeed have more desirable specifications, should certainly offer superior performance, and solemnly note that, naturally, they will need to be “professionally” integrated. Note: Most technical consultants interface and integrate and install systems and services.  Like many managements, they don’t ask if the work is necessary in the first place.

So the new system gets purchased, programmed, interfaced, integrated, and installed.  Usually it does work better, especially at first.  Then, after a while, sometimes after only a little while, performance or productivity or whatever the metric was, seems to lag once more, and the process begins anew.

Q: But was everyone wrong?  Why couldn’t management or the consultant-integrators make sure that this time the problem with the system was fixed?
A: Quite possibly because the system wasn’t the problem.

Over the years, we’ve often come to realize that systems that management thought were operating poorly and stretched beyond capacity were in fact being underutilized.

They were also underperforming because employees were caught in a quagmire of cumulative workarounds that reflected neither their job descriptions nor the work they were supposed to be doing.  Instead, actual work flow required continual, time-consuming sidesteps of catch 22s that had to be overcome to get any real work done at all.

Q: Why does management allow workarounds to happen?
A: Management doesn’t permit them and is usually unaware of them.  Process anomalies such as workarounds, redundancies, and procedural gaps are generally invisible to managements that operate solely by numbers and outcomes.  Sometimes, management attitude can be summed up as either:

1.If I don’t think it’s broken, don't waste time fixing it.

2.I'm comfortable with things exactly as they are. (Just don't ask me if I know how things actually are.)

However, sometimes management is involved and concerned and the problems occur anyway.  So, it’s worth asking again:

Q:  Why don’t new systems solve the problems the older ones couldn’t?
A:  Because new systems usually resemble current systems, only somehow they’re “better.” Similarly, new systems are not purchased to replace existing processes, but instead to generally increase “productivity.” In most cases, such lack of specificity dooms the effort from the beginning.

Q: Can you be more specific?
A: Here’s why history unfortunately often repeats itself.

• New systems are acquired to improve productivity based on increases in speed and automation of procedures. It should be obvious, though, that mindlessly automating procedures simply permanently imbeds the ad hoc and unofficial workarounds that allow the existing system to function,albeit inefficiently.
• Moreover, since the previous system change or upgrade resulted in the current layer of workarounds and inefficiencies, any new system will now have to be modified to remain consistent with the only way to "get anything done around here".
• This task is accomplished by employees consuming significant company time without management knowledge, inevitably accompanied by much grumbling also not overheard by management. Without a fresh look, the Law of Diminishing Returns will inevitably reapply and the desire for a better system will again raise its head.

Q: That’s a good theory. Can you provide some examples?
A: Sure. Consider accounting systems.  Older companies began with individual ledger cards and paper copies of transactions, records, etc.  When specific events happened, say, an unusually large order, or a special discount, certain managers would ask for copies, which they received, and which became part of the procedure.

When companies first computerized, in order to minimize disruption, they merely automated their manual procedures, displaying screen shots of ledger cards, for example.  Employees met their bosses’ demands for copies by duplicating the desired pages and then hand delivered them to the managers.

Over time, the physical copies or photocopies that originally went to Joe in sales and Mary in credit for their signatures were recreated as printed or e-mailed copies that also went to Joe and Mary, or later, to their successors.  The new recipients didn’t necessarily acknowledge receipt, didn’t even know why they had to look at the documents, now dramatically increased in number, but since their predecessors had received them, there must be a reason they that they now got them, too.  No one asked any questions since the corporate culture was to go along if you wanted to get along. They might not even know that some orders or payments were being held up pending their acknowledgment.

Q: But that was then. How about now?
A: Newer generations of accounting systems use integrated charts of accounts, which cause employees to spend additional effort each time a new system is installed, figuring out anew how to create special reports to generate the desired information– more workarounds, of course – to print out and deliver or forward by e-mail to their bosses and others.  Each subsequent system inevitably places different demands on employees, but they always devise additional workarounds to handle these while naturally preserving the accumulated workarounds that have already become part of the process.

Here's another way to view the phenomenon.  On a formal level, vendors, IT departments, and systems consultants replace and/or integrate existing systems and processes with new systems and processes.  At the same time, on an informal level, employees pretty much do the same, except the old workarounds must be modified by new workarounds that must preserve enough of the old workarounds to ensure that the company can still function.

And That’s Why Systems Don't Work and Consultants Don't Help!

Q: And you’re saying that’s really the reason new systems don’t work out?  Because of workarounds? That’s the answer?
A: Of course not. The real answer is that the right questions frequently aren’t asked, and when that happens, any answer will do. 

PSM, as we’ve said, is the most superficial form of business analysis.  PSM uncovers flaws in processes and procedures and allows us to get a handle on the work that must be done, the work that is being done, and the functions currently left largely undone

Q: And so, the answer is?
A: As Socrates reportedly admonished, “Know Thyself.”  Management should thoroughly understand its real needs before it tries to satisfy them.  Sometimes, management needs some help.   And some of those times, Teleconvergence is that help

Q: Why does Teleconvergence do PSM at all?  How does it fit in with your other telecom, technology, marketing, and business development activities?
A: Business Analysis is part of our basic perspective and approach to project management and system evaluation.  Systems don't just do things. They exist to perform processes that lead to the satisfaction of business objectives.  That’s why Teleconvergence can't articulate your system requirements until we first understand your business needs, strategic objectives, operating priorities, etc.

Q: How does PSM fit in with your other work?  Is it very expensive or extensive?  Doesn’t it take a lot of time and disrupt employees’ activities?
A: Since Teleconvergence normally performs PSM along with our other functions, incremental cost is minimized, and there's no obligation to keep digging and digging until something is discovered.  There's far less functional disruption and staff resentment as a result, since if nothing procedurally redundant or superfluous turns up during our usual fact finding and interviews, we simply quickly move on.

Moreover, management will be far more willing to take steps to correct deficiencies when newly-determined procedural efficiencies and insights can be implemented either in conjunction with a new system, or by modifying existing systems and procedures to eliminate unnecessary workarounds.

Note: This is how Teleconvergence can create both the differentiators that facilitate optimal system selection and how we establish the requirements for the platform upon which much of an organization's future productivity can be predicated.

Related Reading

For more information about PSM, see the Procedural Strip Mining (PSM) section.

You might also want to look at the section The Teleconvergence Process. Read as much as you wish, but please begin with Selecting a System --- And Getting it Backward.