RSSTechnology and organizational complexity
Mckinsey has a report out titled "Putting Organizational Complexity in its place" which is not about Information Technology specifically, but may have great applicability to many IT departments which seem mired in such complexity.
Organizational, or institutional, complexity differs from individual complexity primarily in scope; organizational complexity is driven by the ground conditions of business operation, the demands of operating multi-nationally, for instance, or dealing with large numbers of vendors and suppliers. Individual complexity is more narrowly focused on process aspects that make life complicated for staff on a tactical level.
The report finds that executives, when discussing complexity problems in their organizations, identify primarily the institutional issues while showing little recognition of the individual issues. Consequently, efforts to reduce complexity often fail at the level of improving tactical operations because the initiatives are not oriented at the primary problems faced by individual employees.
In one respect, the findings highlight what is actually a much broader and widely recognized problem in large organizations: out-of-touch executives. Is it truly a surprise to anyone that an executive's assessment of organizational complexity differs greatly, and fails to fully encompass, that of an ordinary worker? And is it shocking that this misapprehension results in "wasted effort or organizational damage?"
The treatment for the condition is similarly rote: launch an internal survey, interview employees, build a heat map. I am sure that somewhere, somehow, this methodology has actually worked for some organization and resulted in great gains in productivity and employee satisfaction. In my experience, the data collection process simply adds to the overhead that is causing all the problems in the first place, and the information is processed down into PowerPoint pablum that does little to clue management into the reality that it represents.
If it strikes you as sad that management should have to interview employees to find out what is going on in their own shop, it brings warmth to my heart. I'm a consultant, and such organizations are easy meat for consultants. Nowhere is it easier for me to look good than a place where staff have been trying to communicate this information to management, and management has steadfastly ignored them and instead brought me in to collect the same information at twice the price. This does not, however, do anything for employee morale.
This is probably exactly what McKinsey was thinking when they put together the article. It's a full-employment act for consultants. Obviously they have better business sense than I do.
