Bob Lewis
Columnist

Just a thought …

analysis
Oct 27, 20031 min

IT isn't a relay race. Do your processes involve lots of hand-offs between employees with narrowly-defined responsibilities? If so, you've built more than excessive overhead into them: You've also built in poor-quality results. Why? When lots of individuals each work on just a tiny bit of the problem, the chance of their bits assembling into a coherent whole is much lower than if each one builds a meaningful sub

IT isn’t a relay race.

Do your processes involve lots of hand-offs between employees with narrowly-defined responsibilities? If so, you’ve built more than excessive overhead into them: You’ve also built in poor-quality results. Why?

When lots of individuals each work on just a tiny bit of the problem, the chance of their bits assembling into a coherent whole is much lower than if each one builds a meaningful subassembly while understanding the entire problem.

Fix this by involving as small a number of people as possible in each process, and giving each one both a broad role, and responsibility for the business outcome.

– Bob

——–