In this episode we discuss “IT Should Just Work” with a capital I and T. In the world of Information Technology, sometimes the expectation of technology and what is delivered does not even up. Nicole and Ben discuss the real-world impact of that disparity and how the “IT should just work“ mentality can help IT reach full potential.
Mayhem and MISfits Episode 2
Nicole Grimm
Hello and welcome. My name is Nicole Grimm.
Ben Rockey
And I'm Ben Rockey.
Nicole Grimm
And this is mayhem and misfits where we take a fun look at business gone awry. And the systems that save them. Today we're going to talk about it should just work.
Ben Rockey
What should just work?
Nicole Grimm
It should just work as in capital I T.
Speaker
Ah, right.
Nicole Grimm
It is a capital I and a capital T which in our world would stand for information technology. Many people have probably heard of it before.
Ben Rockey
I would hope so.
Nicole Grimm
We will also use the terms in our line of work as is.
Ben Rockey
Information systems and information solutions.
Nicole Grimm
Yeah, is should just work or is should just work does not sound the same. Information technology is more streamlined, more main. Focus of the world so it stands for information technology.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, I'm often referred to as the IT guy in every room I walk into, including. My own home.
Nicole Grimm
Right? So we have an explanation or an origin story for why we would focus on it should just work.
Ben Rockey
Right, so it's just work was born from a place of. I think we've all at one point said it should just work. Something happened, whether it was, you know, trying to change the input on the TV or getting the e-mail to work on her phone. It should just work. For where it started for us, we were in a business. Many years ago. That was growing and changing and trying to become something bigger than it was and a part of that process was making sure all the components of the business were ready to grow and. A pretty big component of any business is the IT department and the IT department was struggling with how to grow what it needed to do. How it needed to react to the business. There was kind of a branding problem. People saw the IT department as the computer people, but not necessarily as someone that was there to make things better. And more systematic. While this was all going on. I got a phone call one day from the CEO of the company who called me directly and keeping in mind I was not frontline helpdesk is you know I did start out my career that way but at this. Point I was, you know, a couple. Hangs up, but he called me 'cause he knew I could just come over there and fix it and he asked me to to to come over to his office. And so I walk over his office and he's trying to explain. A problem he would having with his iPhone. Syncing up with some e-mail on his computer and he was explaining how one of the other technicians had come out and fixed one problem. And then another technician came out and fixed another problem. And he just was frustrated 'cause it should just work. I just don't understand it should just work. Why is it? Why does it take all this? Was it take? People walking. Out here and for me in that moment, hearing that phrase of it should just work as this frustration. Came this idea of. It should just work, should be. A standard we. Need to be living up to this expectation as a team of these things that people depend on, the CEO of the company or a person on the line. Enter someone in the billing department. They need these technologies to be solid and just work, and so I ran back to Nicole. Well, I I walked but I walked quickly back to Nicole's desk and said, hey, this this thing just happened. So and so said it should just work 'cause they they were really frustrated but. I think it's I think it's our new standard and I think it's something we should live up to, and I think it's what we've been looking for as the answer to how we start to rebrand ourselves in the company and. Starting there, we started to dig into how and where could we take this?
Nicole Grimm
Right? During this process of rebranding. We did identify that this was a center stone, if you will, and it still lives today. This experience we had where we came up with it should just work if you will. Or it was said in a in a tone and in a ring. That still rings true today. It still carries forward 10 plus years later. It's been over a decade and you can still use it as your center stone if you will. It should just work as the opposite side of frustration couldn't be a promise. So we use this as a promise and a standard to meet the expectations that people come in with. As an example, business is going to think that I spent all this money. I've spent all this resources. I've found all these really smart resources or vendors or what have you that say these should solve my problems and this will make it better. And this will make things smoother. It should just work is something that everyone is promising. The users and the business community as a whole.
Ben Rockey
And it's true it those things all could. Just work. But there's some work that goes ahead. Of those purchases of bringing those people on.
Nicole Grimm
An investment, an investment in management, energy time, resources that go behind the end result of the promise of it should just work. Many, many moving parts and pieces go into it and if you pull it all together correctly. And seamlessly, efficiently then it should almost appear as magic. You know, like don't look behind the curtain to see all the moving part. It is presented in a way that is polished and delivered to the customer in a manner that's as simple as an app on a phone.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, one of the great successes for an IT department. As far as it relates to. How they're meeting the needs. Of of the team another company is. When we go unnoticed? Meaning that we've done such a good job thinking through and supporting whatever the process is. It should just work. Is the standard and expected and so not thought about it. It should just work. It's fine, it should just work. This this system I log into this printer I use how I get my e-mail how I reset my password? It's never a problem because some good energy was put into. Making sure it was something I can do. What I need to in the. At the time I need to do it.
Nicole Grimm
Right, the evolution of it should just work and in tie and in partnership with the business changes the ID department from firefighters putting out problems or fixing things that break into partners next to the business. There are some. Pillars to this process that we will walk through now that kind of give a standard or give a structure to it should just work in what is the. Starting point, I would say from. Being in the background, it working so smoothly that you barely even know how it operates or you don't even question it right into the next level, which would be having technology help you advance your business into a way that you know, disrupts the market and causes. Causes some questions about the status quo that the rest of the world is operating under. So the first process would be to look at systems thinking. So we'll describe a bit about the systems thinking if you if you kind of Google if you will systems thinking you'll come up with some. Different definitions of it. System thinking is a way according to Wiki of. Making sense of complexities in the world. All the moving parts and how they are related in terms of their holes and their relationships to each other as opposed to each piece in part separately. When we looked at system thinking in our world, we looked at the whole process system, thinking so beginning to end and we'll go into some ideas about making a pizza as an example. Many can relate to making pizzas.
Ben Rockey
So many people know or have bought a inexpensive pizza from Domino's over the last few years, and we know that many people have bought pizza from Domino's because Domino's about 10 years ago was kind of an obscurity as far as quick and easy pizza, it was either Pizza Hut. Little Caesars and those are kind of your choices, along with whoever your mom and pop high quality pizza place was. But Domino's had kind of fallen off the map, and they made some decisions. They made some decisions about the market they wanted to serve the type of food they wanted to serve. But they also made a decision about how the customer and the employee. Were part of the same process some of the. Some of the work that they put into how the customer could actually order a pizza has dramatically changed. How people expect to order a pizza. You can, you know we can reference things like Amazon or you know any kind of online ordering, but to bring that to the pizza ordering processes, it's very interesting. So one of the things Domino's decided is number one. We want to make sure when you're ordering a pizza. That you have all the flexibility you want in ordering that pizza you can. Pick the pizza by its. Whatever choices we've already made for. You only in combination or a wine or pepperoni. But then you can also change the sauces. The cheese is how much of a particular ingredient is on the pie. Do you want on half? Do you want on the whole? Do you want extra put in special notes? If you need to, but limit that process because it wants you making choices through so it can be very systematic. And we'll even offer you freebies and ways to easily add coupons that you don't have to think. About and will do a. Really good job that you don't have to go click back seven times to make those choices and then finally when it comes time to. Check out and have it delivered. Give you options that aren't just your home address, and you can also pick. I'm at the park or I'm at work and make that an easy process for you to put in where it needs to go, and then a promise is made when you actually submit that order that we're going to let you track what's going on with your pizza, and you'll know. When it's been handed off to an an employee to start making, and you'll know what stage of the process they're at in making your pizza, and you'll know when the pizza has left to come be delivered to you. Where the? Piece is at on on stops. On the way, and we'll give you a little ring right before the pizza is about to be delivered so you can easily get to the door. And receive your pizza. That's pretty amazing. The amount of thought that went into that, and that was just from the customer experience. On top of that, there's an entire process that's being put into place for the employee who's going through the process of pulling that order. Getting the the list of. Ingredients and what's being made. A way to check in along the process. The bake time that goes in and the quality check process that's built in to making that pizza to ensure that when it leaves, it's leaving exactly as as the customers ordered it.
Nicole Grimm
Right and. This system thinking is also. Necessary to look at the whole process. So as you mentioned, not only the employee making it, we have delivery drivers, we have a supply chain that needs to be in place in order to meet the ingredient needs, let alone the infrastructure necessary to make the pizza the place. Where it's being made, the maintenance of the. Hardware to make the pizza. The ovens are in good operating order and all of this is also ordering from the same system. So if the employee has to make an edit to it. The order in the system. They can also communicate that seamlessly with the customer. The entire process is frictionless as much as you can make it, so it's just smooth and seamless throughout the process. The other piece of this would be that if it's all being tracked and monitored and recorded and easily accessible with the tools that we have for technology today. This can also. Provide reports and key performance indicators or KPIs, as some people might call them. For management to be able to watch over the process and make adjustments and continuously refine it and make continuous improvements to this process in order to move it from initial concept to where Domino's is today and perhaps even preparing for where Domino's will be tomorrow with this process. This is only just to order a pizza, so we can only imagine what people could do with this on much larger orders. For many of our customers in the ag industry, as an example that are processing large batches of material, food products, tractors, these kinds of things being able to communicate. Where their tractor is along their build process. In such a high ticket item, it could only be more valuable if it's this valuable at A at a pizza that maybe 10 bucks or $20 in cost.
Ben Rockey
Or for a customer who's. Maybe part of the nut processing industry be able to tell you where your trailers are. Parked when the farmer can expect a trailer to come out for load out. Maybe we expected to send out three trailers, but we're only we only have enough product to come back into and be able to provide that information back to the processor. To make adjustments for OK, well, we're going to need another hour on this shift to process this load, and we can move on to the next.
Nicole Grimm
Right System thinking is a baseline to making sure that you're thinking about all the complexities and it's Internet working relationships with. One process versus another. Many of these things require you to watch, listen, ask questions, think, do it, and return back again to continuously improve this process or even catch things that you didn't catch the first time. We also might ask why many option many times if you will like we may see in lean manufacturing examples or this kind of thing where we're constantly questioning the status quo. Why do you do it that way? What could be better? What have we seen from other industries that we may be able to add? All of this kind of goes into this system thinking category. In this process.
Ben Rockey
I think what's important to highlight is this is not a process that you do alone or held to one person earlier. We were kind of hinting at that this type of work can be resource intensive. To do this initial discovery. In this initial conversation about these initial ideas. It takes more than just the person. In providing the new process, there's time that needs to be set aside to talk with managers or owners. The staff, the customer. If you have customers who wish to be involved, basically all the players who have input to how that system could be improved or what they need out of it. And setting expectations is a. Really important part of that discovery. I need this. I'm missing that highlighting those opportunities so that as you develop this system and you think through what you're trying to serve, you know what your goal is.
Nicole Grimm
Right, that dovetails off into the other portion, which is this people. Portion of this process which would be otherwise dubbed as the user experience in our in our vocabulary, user experience is basically how is it that they have to. Have the experience of using the process the system many times you'll hear it in technology based to be on a system based level, but it can be the user experience in terms of. Their receipt of the end result, the product, the pizza being delivered in this case or them even using the system themselves to make sure that it's intuitive enough for them to. Have self-service and use the system on their own without having you know hours and hours of training or explanations or really revealing all the moving parts in the background just to make them understand what they need to do to. Get the end result they want, right? So you want to make this as seamless as possible for the user.
Ben Rockey
That user experience translates into real world successes and real world savings. When you think about it from a seasonal workforce perspective or a organization that might have kind of a for whatever reason may have a high turnover. You know Domino's is a great example, but a lot of their staff. Going to college and teenagers in high school who probably aren't going to stay forever so their process has to be something that's easily taught and easily adopt. Did has very little upfront training from anyone to just step in and be a part of that process. The technology they're using, the computer screens, what it's asked of them, what it tells them. To do needs to be something that can be easily picked up. If you're in a. Seasonal kind of work, whether it be you know if it's AG based and you have people who are working your processing line, you want to you want to have a technology and a process that's thought out that. When your seasonal staff steps in or even your full time staff who only has to do this work at this intensity three or four months out of the year that. Tool itself is well thought out enough and has explanation where it's needed and the training is lightweight enough that anyone could just walk up and start working. Have an interface that's simple to understand, simple to read, and has them focused on what they need to do in that moment.
Nicole Grimm
Right, you also dovetailed off into another topic that we obviously focus on being in it in the IT portion of it. It should just work. Promise would be that technology that information technology which would essentially be the hardware and software. How do you actually? Deliver on this system thinking all the parts integrated into this quote, UN quote system, and all the moving pieces and parts that end up as a result. Of this user interface, right? So all three things coming together, the systems thinking the user experience on top of your technical delivery through hardware and software.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, and and having that again that goal set in mind and thinking about the person that's involved in the process in mind when you make these technology choices, this is important. The technology piece. Is often. The last step in the process of. It should just work mentality. You start with that system thinking, thinking about the goals you're trying to achieve and you move to the user experience thinking about what the employee or the OR the customer or the manager need. Those needs that are coming in and what they need to do to get to them and then the technology marries up to that. There are a lot of cloud services out. In the world. Cloud is fantastic. There's from a business perspective, usually much lower overhead. There aren't servers to take care of. You're not worried about nightly backups. Your staff is more focused on the tool than caring for the tool, and if you're in a situation where you can. Take advantage of cloud services. It can be a real boon and most of the time of those cloud services, the company that's providing them has already put some energy into thinking about how to make them useful and easy to maintain in the environment. And if you can take advantage of that, fantastic. If you are in manufacturing agriculture, you don't always get the full benefit of the cloud for no other reason. Then if you are. Deep outside of city territory somewhere and like beyond the county lines. Oftentimes you don't have that dedicated Internet connection that is necessary to fully support cloud, and so you have to change your thinking and look at other types of resources and maybe make other kinds of investments to ensure that the technology, the hardware, the servers, the equipment. The maintenance of the equipment has been thought out and has a maintenance plan and has some effort put behind ensuring that it's set up and maintained in a way that your staff. Can use it uninterrupted during your busiest times of year. That require more planning.
Nicole Grimm
Right different resources. So each of these it should just work as a promise has different moving parts under them that meet that same standard or level of expectation. For that business, not everyone is going to have the. Domino's, if you will recipe to delivering their product right. All these products are different so they have different moving parts and different approaches that they need to consider in order to meet their needs, whether they be out in the middle of nowhere or right in the middle of a city scape. And have access to different infrastructures and technologies that are offered by the world as a whole, right? Either way, it should just work. Can be a promise for businesses all over the world and in all kinds of different. These basic Areas of focus being system thinking, user experience and technology are the three pillars that you can use to support your strategy and meet your expectations and make sure that your technology is actually driving value. For your customers, your employees. And everyone involved in the process, including management and the general oversight of the business. One point that you had made that we should make sure that we highlight is that the fact that the technology comes last and that is something that is somewhat overlooked. I think at times the technology is the end result, so it can be the flashy, cool, really simplistic end. Looking thing that you get in the end, similar to when you have this seamless experience to order a Domino's Pizza. That's one of the reasons why it's they're selling so well is because this process is so simple, but there are many, many moving parts and lots of time and resources and efforts that went into. Making that end result be a click of a button away. That activate teams of people and activate many processes in order to get that pizza delivered to your door at a considerably fair price.
Ben Rockey
And a lot of that ability to sell it. At a fair price. Comes from. Finding ways to make the process quick and constructive. Using resources at their optimum.
Nicole Grimm
Right many times we have the passing of baton if you will. So each of those resources, the passing of their particular baton is so smooth and seamless in this system. Thinking and user experience and technology interconnected relation. And ship that. There is nothing left, but it should just work as the end result. But it's the standard. Everyone just accepts it easy.
Ben Rockey
Yeah, and that's I think that's the key. Back to the, that's the point about being two sides of the coin. There's the. There's the one side where it should just work is the pain. It's the frustration coming out. It should just work. Why is it not working? It should just work and the other side of that coin is is the commitment of it. Should just work. We're going to commit to making sure that we come about. These processes and these choices and the decisions and these energy so that we're delivering something that just works. It will just work. We are going to do this. We're going to hold ourselves to this standard and we're going to do it routinely. That's why things like Sigma 6 and lean process manufacturing really parallel a lot of its mentality now like agile and the like, because it's all about continuous improvement. The biggest gain is about that continuous improvement. And that's really the the value. That comes out of committing to it should just work because it should just work is not just a point in time. It should just work is an ongoing commitment.
Nicole Grimm
Right, it should just work as a strategy, promise or principle for the business and the value that it can actually provide. For the whole. All right everyone. That's it for today. I think we've covered all our points.
Ben Rockey
It's good it was a good talk.
Nicole Grimm
Yes, thanks for listening. We hope you found some value in this conversation and please join us next time for more mayhem and misfits.