The Drill Sergeant and the Charmed Flute
Posted by Felix Enescu on May 26th, 2007
The corporate IT is invaded by the consumer world: wireless, PDA, messenger, Skype, you name it!
The peoples shops around for entertainment and convenience. While corporate IT is not expected to provide entertainment, it is judged by the convenience it provides.
I have heard countless times complain of IT senior executives about their users that demand convenience.
Users expect corporate intranet to rival Google, purchasing process to be friendly like Amazon, to contact workmates via messenger like they contact their friends.
They expect corporate phonebook to have at least LinkedIN functionalities, expect knowledge management systems like Wikipedia and the list can go on for ever.
The average IT executive thinks the corporate IT is like army: you have to suffer to strengthen yourself! Rough edges are not only accepted but expected. One has to fight with cumbersome processes, bloated web pages, and weird rules to perform even the most simple tasks.
They position themselves like the drill sergeant of corporate IT!
Even if your CFO will be happy with the cost reduction you achieved, it will be very hard to live with a crowd of angry customers.
Your users will compare your offering with the convenience industry outside and you will be in real trouble!
These days most employees are knowledge workers. They don’t need punch clocks, complicated processes or bloated software.
The first priority for you is to remove any obstacle preventing them to achieve highest intellectual productivity. Second give them tools they like and use happily. As Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth use to say:
Nice IS a feature!
It is now time to throw away your campaign hat and bring in a charmed flute!