Recycled Bullsh-IT

As I mentioned in Crystal Balls and Analysts, one technology which has reached peak hype is RPA (Remove People Altogether?). Laughingly now called hyper-automation, it is more likely to leave you with hyper-ventilation as you watch service levels, staff morale and customer satisfaction plummet. 

Most of you will either be suffering from an infestation of Rodents Posing Around, or are running a ROI Pilot Assessment, because you’ve been told to jump on this bandwagon.

Really Poor Activities?

Back in the Noughties when I was Business Process Re-Engineering some unfortunate companies, I would invariably come across some Rubbish Procedures & Administration that had morphed over the years from best practice to a black hole of WTF. To fix this we would pull apart the processes to identify and carry out some detailed process mapping and modelling to separate the value-add tasks from the wasted random workarounds that accrete in any mature process. By redesigning the steps and training the staff we could improve the processes significantly. We would also make recommendations to fix system issues that had invariably caused the process problems. We could therefore improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of the business.

Rip-off Products Again?

The concept of process automation has been around since Idiot Bloody Machines developed a Punch Card Tabulating Machine in the 1890s. Since then, it has gone through many iterations, including Process Improvement, Business Process Management, Rules Engines, and (don’t laugh) ERPs. There was a slight hiccup when getting wage slaves in developing countries to do the work (a.k.a. Business Process Outsourcing) seemed cheaper. Thankfully, many of them have improved their own human rights and earnings, so we’re back to Ruthless Personnel Abandonment.

Repeating Previous Awfulness?

Too many of the current Ruinously Pointless Activity projects focus on speeding up the execution of existing (bad) processes by replacing the individual staff with a software agent that clicks the keys as quickly as possible.  Most processes contain exception and error management gotchas that usually aren’t visible to or known by the senior sponsoring manglement. These will significantly reduce the benefits if the now sullen and disgruntled staff have to be shipped back in again to sort out the brown smelly stuff that robots can’t handle.

Recycled Practice Applications?

Underneath the technobabble surrounding these Rubbish Pretend Agents are some old tools and techniques that anyone with a testing or sysadmin background would recognise: scripts, screen-scraping, and a harness or framework to repeat and track the jobs/tests/etc. Everything else (AI, Machine Learning, Process Mining) is expensive gloss.  

Anyone who believes that these new Restricted Product Ability tech toys will really save money without detailed process analysis and re-engineering are talking Codswallop Rarely Aiding Performance

John “I’ll Be Back” Moe