21 ms·

Perhaps. Why though? Why aren't HR, accounting or other such tasks more productive with computers than without?

wizzwizz4 5y ago
With paper, you do it your way, which maps to the organisation's way at both ends (and is probably just a minor improvement over the organisation's way). With computers, unless you can reprogram the system (which is tricky even for programmers), you're doing it the computer's way, which is often worse than the way the organisation would want to have it set up.
- handrous 5y ago
  I also suspect management is placing a high value on some ideal of "total visibility" into their organization, for which they are sold computerization as a solution, and are willing to accept significantly greater friction across their organization in order to get it. They imagine it will be of such great value that it'll be worth it. Of course what happens is one or (usually) both of: they aren't actually ready or able to use that visibility for any productive purpose sufficient to justify its (labor-to-use, and direct monetary) cost; the system doesn't actually deliver so perfect a view as they wanted (though it may act like it does).
- dalbasal 5y ago
  Not a bad hypothesis.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  "which maps to the organisation's way at both ends" this isn't always a positive or benefit to an org as a whole, although sometimes it's a net benefit to a specific decision maker. many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. As things grow, the org info changes, needs change, and people try to squeeze new exceptions and rules in to the existing process. No one has 'authority' to revamp the process (whether with computers or not), and it just gets weirder and weirder. "If the customer number starts with W and their date is earlier than 2007, give them a 10% credit on any items they ordered from the summer catalog, then email joe@ourcompany.com". "There's no Joe that works here... ?" "Don't try to change anything - this works just fine as it is".
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. Whereas the “computer's way” was basically set by some people in Microsoft who'd never heard of the organisation and likely weren't even thinking about what it does, because that's not what they were making the software to do.
    - mgkimsal 5y ago
      if you're just dumping everything in to excel, perhaps. I was more thinking about custom software, internally developed or contracted by the company to automate/amplify whatever their processes are.
PeterisP 5y ago
Well, they certainly are, you need a much smaller department to do the same things, and those departments relied on people like "secretarial pool" for typing documents, people carrying internal mail, etc - so productivity of generic business administration tasks certainly has increased. However all of those gains would appear with basic "office computerization" in late 1990s and early 2000s (which is quite visible as productivity growth in the article) with wordperfect/word and visicalc/1-2-3/excel, and not meaningfully changed with more recent develpoments. Accounting today is automated roughly as much as you could in 2000, at least if you were up to date with year 2000 tech.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  Agreed on the timeline. We certainly did have a lot of roles, like secretaries and typists that we don't have anymore. That happened 1980-2000ish. That said if you look at HR departments and such, they're not smaller today.
robotresearcher 5y ago
They are. Hence the steep gradient section 1995-2003 as computers and internet were added. But you don’t keep getting additional benefit at the same rate. Go from paper to spreadsheet workflow? Useful step. But then what? Eliminate the typing pool? Saves money. Then what? Diminishing returns are to be expected.

With paper, you do it your way, which maps to the organisation's way at both ends (and is probably just a minor improvement over the organisation's way). With computers, unless you can reprogram the system (which is tricky even for programmers), you're doing it the computer's way, which is often worse than the way the organisation would want to have it set up.

handrous 5y ago
I also suspect management is placing a high value on some ideal of "total visibility" into their organization, for which they are sold computerization as a solution, and are willing to accept significantly greater friction across their organization in order to get it. They imagine it will be of such great value that it'll be worth it. Of course what happens is one or (usually) both of: they aren't actually ready or able to use that visibility for any productive purpose sufficient to justify its (labor-to-use, and direct monetary) cost; the system doesn't actually deliver so perfect a view as they wanted (though it may act like it does).
dalbasal 5y ago
Not a bad hypothesis.
mgkimsal 5y ago
"which maps to the organisation's way at both ends" this isn't always a positive or benefit to an org as a whole, although sometimes it's a net benefit to a specific decision maker. many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. As things grow, the org info changes, needs change, and people try to squeeze new exceptions and rules in to the existing process. No one has 'authority' to revamp the process (whether with computers or not), and it just gets weirder and weirder. "If the customer number starts with W and their date is earlier than 2007, give them a 10% credit on any items they ordered from the summer catalog, then email joe@ourcompany.com". "There's no Joe that works here... ?" "Don't try to change anything - this works just fine as it is".
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > many times the "org's way" was set years ago by someone who doesn't even work there any longer, and they chose "steps XYZ" because it's all that was available at the time. Whereas the “computer's way” was basically set by some people in Microsoft who'd never heard of the organisation and likely weren't even thinking about what it does, because that's not what they were making the software to do.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    if you're just dumping everything in to excel, perhaps. I was more thinking about custom software, internally developed or contracted by the company to automate/amplify whatever their processes are.

PeterisP 5y ago

Well, they certainly are, you need a much smaller department to do the same things, and those departments relied on people like "secretarial pool" for typing documents, people carrying internal mail, etc - so productivity of generic business administration tasks certainly has increased. However all of those gains would appear with basic "office computerization" in late 1990s and early 2000s (which is quite visible as productivity growth in the article) with wordperfect/word and visicalc/1-2-3/excel, and not meaningfully changed with more recent develpoments. Accounting today is automated roughly as much as you could in 2000, at least if you were up to date with year 2000 tech.

dalbasal 5y ago
Agreed on the timeline. We certainly did have a lot of roles, like secretaries and typists that we don't have anymore. That happened 1980-2000ish. That said if you look at HR departments and such, they're not smaller today.

robotresearcher 5y ago

They are. Hence the steep gradient section 1995-2003 as computers and internet were added. But you don’t keep getting additional benefit at the same rate. Go from paper to spreadsheet workflow? Useful step. But then what? Eliminate the typing pool? Saves money. Then what? Diminishing returns are to be expected.