IT should be transformative

IT should be transformative

Most of the places I've worked at, software is used to partially or totally automate an existing business process. Relatively little thought is put into how the process itself can be truly improved with the help of IT. I have seen my share of modernized systems that still clearly trace their lineage back to totally paper-based legacy processes; in fact, a "modern" system may still be required to print out the paper expected in the old system.

Even high-powered software-based systems that promote BI or workflow or knowledge management rarely change the underlying business processes. More often than not you end up with a web/cloud-based BI dashboard that actually resembles the Excel-based PDF paper report that people were used to seeing, or carefully modelled workflow that is now incorporated into some BPMN/BPEL incarnation that differs not one jot from how people used to do their business using just paper.

What you need to do is rethink how you do your thing. Doing the same thing with Technology Stack 2.x as opposed to Technology Stack 1.x is not going to help you. Where IT can help is making it more efficient to implement your Business Process 2.x. Where IT is just a waste of time and money is where your business processes really haven't changed at all...which is the norm in most organizations.

50+ percent of effective IT transformation requires rethink at business process and requirements levels. The business process inefficiencies in government and private companies are enormous: you do not solve those problems with software.

We've always had IT, going back millennia. It just didn't involve electronics computers and software running on them. Sophisticated enterprises did perfectly OK with paper and pencil and filing systems in cabinets. Modern computer-based IT has actually taken us one step back, insofar as we have lost sight of the basics. It's too easy now to produce meaningless reports, graphics and communications.

To go back to my title, IT itself should not be transformative: it should be the business processes that transform, and IT assists in that.

To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by Arved Sandstrom

  • When Do You Retire A Software Application?

    There are some obvious signs. Almost all of them are maintenance related.

  • What is a Business Analyst?

    I am assessing my career path, I make no bones about that. Part of that was to look at what I have done which does not…

  • Friction in the Workplace

    No, I am not talking about bad blood between colleagues, a toxic or indifferent boss, an incompetent manager, or…

    2 Comments
  • Are You Above Average?

    There is an interesting article I read recently that certainly pertains to the workplace: Everyone thinks they are…

  • Biometrics and Privacy

    Facebook has launched their Moments facial-recognition-powered photo-sharing app in the EU and Canada, after having had…

    1 Comment
  • Great article about HR

    This was a great article. The reason I posted the first image is because this is exactly the same situation that…

  • Basic Skills

    Yes, it is a bit ironic that the image has a typo (the spelling of the word design), but I don't think it detracts from…

  • Can we slow down already?

    I commented in the DevOps group on an article highlighted by a LinkedIn member: https://www.linkedin.

  • Real Engineer versus a "Software Engineer"

    OK, those guys sitting on that steel girder weren't engineers either, but at least they were supervised by a real one…

    3 Comments
  • Travel Abroad

    Referencing http://www.cnn.

Explore content categories