Recycled Bullsh-IT

One of the main reasons for throwing loadsa money at IT is to get Productivity Improvement Gains (PIGs). Unfortunately, most IT just puts lipstick on the PIG, without fixing the underlying fundamental failings, such as poor management, broken processes and demotivated staff.

Remember: The real purpose of IT is to allow Big Tech bosses to build spaceships and take over the known universe.

If IT had delivered the productivity improvements promised over the last 50 years, the whole of the UK would only need Moss and Roy in the basement to occasionally turn IT off and on again – the rest of us would be freed from work and living a leisurely life of luxury. So, I find it both amazing and depressing that anyone actually believes the preposterous productivity pitches that are still being proposed today.

Work It, Make It, Do It

The normal measure of productivity is Output per Hour Worked, so to improve productivity we need to produce more stuff with the same staff, the same stuff with fewer staff (or preferably infinite stuff with no staff, if you believe any of the RPA/AI porkies).  Spending on IT is normally predicated on a firm financial Return on Investment (RoI), with the savings required invariably funded by a reduction in headcount. Luckily, most IT programmes are abysmal at benefits tracking, so by the time you have gone through the pain of implementing the new system, everyone is too exhausted to check if any savings were made, before they kick off its replacement programme.

For a knowledge worker (i.e., anyone not actually making anything or providing a real service), personal productivity has become a fun game of one-upmanship, as you extol the virtues of Fleep over Slack, Bit.ai over SharePoint, or Discord over Zoom. Unfortunately, in your now hyper-connected world you spend so much time (mis)communicating, you can’t concentrate on anything, you’ve lost sight of the big picture, and don’t in fact deliver anything of value anymore.  

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Improving productivity is still achievable, but the answer is rarely a new IT system or the move to cloud. Here are my pointers to perk up your productivity:

For organisations:

• Strong leadership to achieve clear outcomes will help focus everyone on delivering more with less
• Think about Effectiveness as much as Efficiency to ensure you are doing the right thing, as well as doing the thing right
• Get a handle on the key data and metrics that are vital for success to avoid drowning in your data lakes

For in-duh-viduals:

• Stop looking for the next snake oil app that promises to revolutionise your life management – nothing has bettered the Filofax, so dust off your leather organizer and doodle in your paper diary
• Turn off your smartphone and log out of Slack/Teams/Zoom, etc. for at least an hour at a time to get some real work done
• Pick up the phone and have a meaningful real-time conversation with a colleague to do some proper brainstorming and set the world to rights

Oh, and getting your customers to self-serve might increase your productivity, but could annoy them enough to change supplier.  

John “Technologic” Moe