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It’s impressive that this worked. In my experience this doesn’t work because there’s so much “process” built around the tool to handle tons of undocumented edge

It’s impressive that this worked. In my experience this doesn’t work because there’s so much “process” built around the tool to handle tons of undocumented edge cases that deploying the new tool just doesn’t work so it’s extra hard to get it up and running successfully.

mason55 7y ago
The key to being successful at something like this, whether it's internal LOB software or a B2B enterprise product, is to provide a way for users to handle any exceptions out of band. If you try to code for every process exception you will (a) never go live and (b) create a horrendous monstrosity of a system. But if you can find the right spots to put in manual hooks then the users can be empowered to solve their own process exceptions. An easy example is if you have an application that does a bunch of different calculations based on random rules and data sets. Instead of trying to code every calculation and random exception that the users throw at you, you start with the top 80% (or 50% or whatever) and give them a robust way to add a "manual calculation". Then tell them to handle their own exceptions by doing whatever crazy crap they need to do and just stick the result in the system. It's difficult because if you're not familiar with the industry then you won't even be able to imagine the places where exceptions can occur. And the users will complain about having to do stuff manually. If you automate 80% of what they are doing right now and they still have to do 20% manually, stuff that they are doing manually right now, that manual work suddenly becomes a critical blocker that prevents the whole system from being useful. So you need someone with a strong personality who will not just accept that whatever the users are saying is right.
- slfnflctd 7y ago
  What a great summary, I could not agree harder. Some of the worst turmoil happens when suddenly 'business as usual' for customers/users you didn't recognize the full value of disappears, and the front line people have to say things like "the new system doesn't let us do that any more". You're absolutely right that they'll complain and drag their feet no matter what and that rock-solid leadership is needed to overcome this, but if you at least give them a way to do all the good-for-business stuff they did before in a similar time frame (with an overall faster/better system in the long run, of course), the majority of the sane ones will eventually come around.

mason55 7y ago

The key to being successful at something like this, whether it's internal LOB software or a B2B enterprise product, is to provide a way for users to handle any exceptions out of band. If you try to code for every process exception you will (a) never go live and (b) create a horrendous monstrosity of a system. But if you can find the right spots to put in manual hooks then the users can be empowered to solve their own process exceptions. An easy example is if you have an application that does a bunch of different calculations based on random rules and data sets. Instead of trying to code every calculation and random exception that the users throw at you, you start with the top 80% (or 50% or whatever) and give them a robust way to add a "manual calculation". Then tell them to handle their own exceptions by doing whatever crazy crap they need to do and just stick the result in the system. It's difficult because if you're not familiar with the industry then you won't even be able to imagine the places where exceptions can occur. And the users will complain about having to do stuff manually. If you automate 80% of what they are doing right now and they still have to do 20% manually, stuff that they are doing manually right now, that manual work suddenly becomes a critical blocker that prevents the whole system from being useful. So you need someone with a strong personality who will not just accept that whatever the users are saying is right.

slfnflctd 7y ago
What a great summary, I could not agree harder. Some of the worst turmoil happens when suddenly 'business as usual' for customers/users you didn't recognize the full value of disappears, and the front line people have to say things like "the new system doesn't let us do that any more". You're absolutely right that they'll complain and drag their feet no matter what and that rock-solid leadership is needed to overcome this, but if you at least give them a way to do all the good-for-business stuff they did before in a similar time frame (with an overall faster/better system in the long run, of course), the majority of the sane ones will eventually come around.