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I work as a consultant/developer in the B2B software space. Part of my job involves documenting clients' existing processes and converting them to requirements.

I work as a consultant/developer in the B2B software space. Part of my job involves documenting clients' existing processes and converting them to requirements. The type of inefficiencies you describe are EXTREMELY common. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of American companies are simply stuck in the 70s/80s (sometimes the 60s) when it comes to how things are done. Most of their business processes are manual and paper-based and communication is archaic, usually relying on many single points of failure, who happen to be human operators. As a result, stuff falls through the cracks all the damn time. I've been thinking about how companies can manage to stay in business even when they're run so poorly. I've come to the conclusion that it's because many of them, especially the larger ones, face no real competition. All the other companies in their space are run similarly. As long as a decent amount of revenue keeps coming in, the leaders (many of whom are approaching comfortable retirement) simply don't care. I've also realized that, at the aggregate level, the primary reason the American economy is so ahead of other economies today is due to the head-start it enjoyed following World War 2, when most of the developed world had been devastated while America was virtually untouched. If there had been any sort of real competition, things would be very different today - and we're starting to see that as other economies are starting to catch up.

stdbrouw 10y ago
> I've come to the conclusion that it's because many of them, especially the larger ones, face no real competition. All the other companies in their space are run similarly. I'd argue that a better way to describe this is that there is competition and possibly even a lot of competition, but all competitors have to deal with the fact that their employees are not perfect, management is not easy, teamwork is inherently hard and that over time every company accumulates its own set of weird workarounds and inefficient procedures, so this in itself does not lead to a competitive disadvantage.
keithpeter 10y ago
Your work sounds interesting. Do you capture what really happens in the manual system (trust based work-arounds(1) and all) or do you work from what the procedures say should happen? Just wondering. (1)E.g. An reference number is needed to set up X on a system. To get a reference number you need to get Y to sign off. Y is notoriously slow, and I have been doing this for years. Z lets me have a reference number on trust knowing that Y will sign off because my paperwork will be in order. Someone new would not get that trust until a few successful cycles. C.F. Lave and Wenger, communities of practice.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  We capture what really happens in the manual system, as well as what should happen. Sometimes the latter is pretty vague, or (believe it or not) simply unknown, in which case we learn the very final goal (e.g. "all invoices should be approved in under 24 hours") and work backwards to discover bottlenecks. This can take many weeks, sometimes months, because it requires interviewing subject matter experts. Implementing the software comes at the very end, ideally when the underlying process itself has been re-engineered. We found that you can't simply take an existing manual process and implement it in software, because if you do then you also capture many of the inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
  - keithpeter 10y ago
    Excellent answer. One wonders how you identify the 'subject matter experts', and the extent to which you rely on their answers to questions versus direct observation of what they do. My experience (anecdotal, informal) is that there can be quite a difference between a verbal description and what actually happens, and the difference has to do with situational knowledge (as in "oh yes, I forgot about Fred. With Fred we do ZZ instead")

stdbrouw 10y ago

> I've come to the conclusion that it's because many of them, especially the larger ones, face no real competition. All the other companies in their space are run similarly. I'd argue that a better way to describe this is that there is competition and possibly even a lot of competition, but all competitors have to deal with the fact that their employees are not perfect, management is not easy, teamwork is inherently hard and that over time every company accumulates its own set of weird workarounds and inefficient procedures, so this in itself does not lead to a competitive disadvantage.

keithpeter 10y ago

Your work sounds interesting. Do you capture what really happens in the manual system (trust based work-arounds(1) and all) or do you work from what the procedures say should happen? Just wondering. (1)E.g. An reference number is needed to set up X on a system. To get a reference number you need to get Y to sign off. Y is notoriously slow, and I have been doing this for years. Z lets me have a reference number on trust knowing that Y will sign off because my paperwork will be in order. Someone new would not get that trust until a few successful cycles. C.F. Lave and Wenger, communities of practice.

enraged_camel 10y ago
We capture what really happens in the manual system, as well as what should happen. Sometimes the latter is pretty vague, or (believe it or not) simply unknown, in which case we learn the very final goal (e.g. "all invoices should be approved in under 24 hours") and work backwards to discover bottlenecks. This can take many weeks, sometimes months, because it requires interviewing subject matter experts. Implementing the software comes at the very end, ideally when the underlying process itself has been re-engineered. We found that you can't simply take an existing manual process and implement it in software, because if you do then you also capture many of the inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
- keithpeter 10y ago
  Excellent answer. One wonders how you identify the 'subject matter experts', and the extent to which you rely on their answers to questions versus direct observation of what they do. My experience (anecdotal, informal) is that there can be quite a difference between a verbal description and what actually happens, and the difference has to do with situational knowledge (as in "oh yes, I forgot about Fred. With Fred we do ZZ instead")