Blog
Why your IT is a silent murderer of work pleasure
Do you actually know if your IT systems are undermining the work pleasure of your employees, or that they're contributing to it? With many IT systems the user experience is slowly degrading. In the beginning users will report that it's not running well. But the IT department can do little with that information because the problem is often in the applications themselves and not in the technical IT. users become tired of reporting if nothing improves, so at a certain point all signaling that an application is annoying to work with and is undermining productivity goes missing.
Working is impossible for a quarter of the working day.
A few years back an IT-user department of a large municipality asked me to look at their WMO (Wet Maatschappelijke Ondersteuning - Dutch for Social Support Act)-application. The application was used by a central dispatch department to register applications from residents and to dispatch them across the executing departments and contractors that provided for the needs of the residents. Applications varied from walkers and mobile scooters to rental homes for an ex-convict. A huge variation in applications.
When the personnel of the central dispatch department starts work in the morning the application is already quite slow. it takes dozens of seconds before data are retrieved and it takes at least as long before applications can be saved. During the day the system becomes progressively slower, it starts taking a minute or longer before screens are displayed and stored again. That's a big boost for social contacts, the department personnel mask the slow system for the residents by having extended conversations with them. In the meantime frustration is mounting. After 3 PM the system is so slow that working with it becomes impossible, time-outs cause screens to not display at all. Your eyes are not deceiving you, the system is unavailable for a quarter - 25% of the working day, residents cannot submit an application for a quarter of the day. And if you count the rest of the delays the departments are really only working at half capacity. The users ... are annoyed beyond compare. As far as practically possible paper notes are mad the second half of the afternoon to be entered in the system the following morning.
The de-central executing department don't fare much better with the system than the central dispatch department.
Proof is delivered, as if anybody needed any
We used our Frozen Screen Scan to make an analysis of this system from a users perspective. We made an objective measurement of the user experience of several users doing their normal work and made an analysis of the results. We drew the following conclusions:
-
The root cause of the delay is in the servers and the application;
-
The problem is real, the system is always slow and degrades during the working day;
-
The response times are far outside what best practices consider acceptable;
-
After 3 PM the system is completely unusable.
And then ... nothing happens
The expected next step is to measure the server chain and the application that runs on it. The IT department however took the standpoint 'that there was no problem because there were no tickets'. By itself that was correct. The users had reported often in the past ... but never seen any reult whatsoever. So they became tired of filing reports quite a while ago. That just took more time and the reports were not followed up.
Our follow-up investigation never happened. It was blocked by the IT department. If the system hasn't been replaced in the mean time the departments are still working at half capacity.
And your employees, are they happy?
The story about the WMO application is of course quite extreme. When I tell it, I sometimes pinch myself to see if I'm awake. But the report doesn't lie. Even if your situation is a lot less extreme, you can have serious issues beneath the surface. Because users slowly get used to a slowly deteriorating system. Just like being in the same traffic jam each day, if the traffic jam grows a bit daily. And they get tired of reporting if solutions don't come. What would you do if you think they don't take you seriously? But being used to something bad is not the same as having all your ducks in a row. Productivity loss is just part of your problem. If people change jobs because they don't enjoy working for you're even further up the creek without a paddle, especially in the current job market.
How well do you know how satisfied your employees are about the IT they need to work with? What measures have you taken to actually know? And .. do you do that occasionally or on a regular basis?
How do you get the insight you need?
You bring your car to your dealer annually. To have them check if it's still working properly. And if problems are imminent that you'd rather not discover by the roadside in a snowdrift when you're on your way to an important meeting.
As a pilot over 50 I'm obligated to have a medical examination every year, for a commercial pilot that's every 6 months. They check if my vision is still sufficient. If my reflexes still work OK. If I can still maintain a correct balance. If my blood pressure is within limits. You really don't want to be in an airplane if the pilot is not performing well.
For your application it is also wise to regularly have ther quality and performance checked. Software wears out over time. When I tell people that they usually look at me as if I've sprouted antlers, but it's true. The wear doesn't just come from the software itself, but also from a changing environment. Examples are a new Windows or SQL Server version that the application was never built for, working from home or a cloud migration.
And that wear can be measured, just like the slack in the steering of your car or my blood pressure. And you should, because then you know if your employees are still satisfied, before they send their resignation letter.
So, now what?
Book a 15 minute appointment with me and you'll know how you'll get the dearly needed insight in the satisfaction of your employees. We'll plan a Frozen Screen Scan for your most important application so you objectively know how the core of your digital business processes is doing, how satisfied your employees are about their use of that application and if it decreases or increases their productivity. And if it's not OK, where to look for the solution.