Limitations of documents - and why consultants like them

Documents are ineffective in supporting the operationalisation of processes, and the management of knowledge, about complex enterprises.

Accounting processes and knowledge
Imagine the accounting process - if it was implemented using documents (Word, Visio, Excel) i.e. if I am a simple organisation I could create invoices, make payments, create balance sheets, calculate tax, do reports, keep track of assets, answer questions from my customers on what they owe, etc. Now if I were the accountant - I could do this work using documents if the number of elements (invoices, payments etc.) were few, the rate of change of information about by assets was slow, and there were not many people asking questions or changing things.

Now if I were the accountant - I could do this work using documents if the number of elements (invoices, payments etc.) where few, the rate of change of information about assets was slow, and there were not many people asking questions or changing things.

I would effectively either do it using documents (Word) where the semantics are not explicit (e.g. where rate, hours and charge are just in written in the word document) or in a model (e.g. which calculates charge from hours and a table of rates). Clearly the model would allow me scale more quickly (make me more productive). This might encourage the business to see the value of the models and get me to extend their scope so I could record other information and answer new questions.

However as the number of elements I have to dealt with increases, the rate of change increased, and the number of people I have to communicate with increased. I will quickly become a bottle neck i.e. typing everything in to my models (or worse still documents).

Clearly I would be come a bottleneck. It would take a very large teams of clerks to get through the work - and still we would not be that quick at answering even simple ad-hoc questions. Now to do the job properly I would of course need sound methods and structures (frameworks) - but they would not make me efficient or agile.

Document and content management systems could exacerbate the problem - if it allowed lots of people to send me word documents about things that I had to deal with i.e. turn into invoices, payments, etc. It might give the illusion that the all the knowledge is being managed - but I would just get swamped.

The answer for a complex business must be a system (accounting) which allows information to be captured as a by-product of day to day work (entered by people at source), analysed and presented in the way that suits each audience (i.e. the system provides reports directly to people who need them). This has the advantage of meaning I don't require a team or clerks and the accountant can be removed from administrative tedium to focus on more strategic decisions.

Of course this would not suit the person who sells me the teams of clerks (consultants) to do this work - because now I would not need most of them.

Technology processes and knowledge
Critical knowledge about an enterprise is knowledge of: the environmental constraints (market, regulatory etc.); and how the environment affects the business strategy (goals, strategies, plans, products etc.), and how the strategy affects business operations (processes, people, information, etc.); and how technologies supports the business operations; and what changes are planned to all of the above. Some of the knowledge is required for operations and some for decisions on possible changes.

It used to be that the number of elements (systems, reports, applications etc.) were few, the rate of change of information about the assets was slow, and there were not many people asking questions or changing things (because usage was limited and constrained).

The number of CPUs per person in a business seems a reasonable proxy for complexity. Thirty years ago there was perhaps 1 CPU for 1000 people (e.g. in a thousand person organisation), twenty years perhaps there were 10 (for the same organisation), fiften years ago perhaps 100, ten years ago perhaps 1000 (as everyone had PCs) and now perhaps 3,000 (various servers, PCs, phones, NW devices etc.). So the complexity has increased by perhaps a factor of 3000 (i.e. 300,000%).

Now if I were the CIO and IT team - I could do this work using documents if there were few elements, a slow rate of change, and I were not asked about changes that often. Certainly thirty years ago, twenty years ago and perhaps fifteen years about - but over the last 10 years things have started to get too complex.

IT has become a bottleneck i.e. typing everything in to my models (or worse still documents), or often just keeping knowledge in our heads.

I need large teams of clerks to get through the work, I am not answering most simple ad-hoc questions. I get told that methods and structures (frameworks) are the answer - but no one can make them work.

Document and content management systems give the business the illusion that the all the knowledge is being managed - but actually I can't join the dots.

Of course the consultants in the areas (BA, BP, EA, Systems Analysts, Data Analysts etc.) are happy as I have endless need for them. Funnily enough none of them mention any systems based answers (unless they sell me a bureaux offering locking me into them).

Enterprise processes and knowledge need to be supported by enterprise systems
One can clearly see how enterprise recognise the need for enterprise systems in other areas as they have become complex and critical. It now needs to be recognised that processes for strategy, architecture, governance and transitioning of IT (and arguably the entire business) needs to be treated as an enterprise problem and provided an enterprise solution.



See related item: http://ict-tech-and-industry.blogspot.com/2008/08/stages-of-maturity-in-communications.html