Technology Cannot Fix Stupid
Sitting in a weekly team meeting this morning, I had to ask for clarification after hearing with disbelief how not one, but multiple vendors of ours process membership applications. Here is the long and short version of this:
The vendor receives an XML file containing applications submitted through an online application form. Next, the data from each of these records is used to create a document, which is then printed out. These printed forms are then handed off to a team which then takes the printed forms and manually enters the data back into their system.
I heard this and asked for clarification, and then shook my head. I am continually amazed at the complete lack of intelligence behind processes which are irresponsibly designed. Granted, there are always the quirky, one-off scenarios where business requirements and resource constraints together are such that there is no alternative. However, these exceptions have become rule, demonstrating an emerging pattern that leaves me questioning how this can even be tolerated in organizations where managing data and automated processes is supposed to be their core competency!
It takes human beings, intelligent ones, to create sound, efficient business processes. Technology, being intelligence agnostic can, and I argue tends to be, a powerful enabler of those who use it to patch holes which only applied thought, analysis and design can fill. Technology provides us the means to automate what is done manually, or improve upon existing processes, yet it is a double-edged sword. It’s the classic garbage in/garbage out principle, but on steroids—it will take that garbage, make more of it than you can possibly want and throw it farther than it could by hand.
Ultimately, technology can’t fix stupid, but it almost always makes it worse.
