A mechanic in an auto shop can run a computer diagnostics program on your vehicle to identify what’s wrong, but he can’t do the actual physical trouble-shooting himself. A customer service rep can take you through a scripted checklist for trouble-shooting a problem with your air conditioner, but after you’ve exhausted this checklist, you’re both stumped. Meanwhile in IT, the crackerjack no-code developer writes an app and deploys it at record speed, but he’s at a loss when the app uses more resources than it should and needs to be tuned.
All are examples of how fundamental business processes, and the IT behind them, have become so abstracted away from the actual organic process of doing something that the employees who are charged with performing these tasks simply cannot do them if the predetermined recipe for task performance fails.
In a visit I had with a materials engineer in the semiconductor industry, one manager confided that he was deeply concerned that a new generation of material engineers lacked the ability to “develop workarounds” when a particular metal needed for manufacture was in short supply.
“In my day, we did this,” he said. “But the new engineers just aren’t trained to go beyond the recipes and work scripts that have been defined for them.”
How did we get here?
The streamlining of business processes, highly beneficial in speeding times to market, likely had much to do with it.
There is that flip side of the coin. What do you do when you can’t get answers to an elusive problem — because your workforce has become so abstracted away from the problem — with technology and automation that they really can’t critically think beyond what their tools tell them? As more employees are trained to push buttons and work with automation, often with no substantive knowledge about the “bare metal” processes that these buttons and automation are running, these knowledge gaps can become real problems for companies.
How to make automation work for your company
What can be done so that companies can maintain and grow their internal knowledge bases and work with the advantages that workflow automation gives them?
Design business processes that can handle exceptions
Vendors of AI and automation say these technologies do mundane work so employees can do important work. That’s fine, but what happens if a process exception arises? Will the employee have the skills to address it?
Continue reading: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/can-ai-compensate-lack-employee/
All are examples of how fundamental business processes, and the IT behind them, have become so abstracted away from the actual organic process of doing something that the employees who are charged with performing these tasks simply cannot do them if the predetermined recipe for task performance fails.
In a visit I had with a materials engineer in the semiconductor industry, one manager confided that he was deeply concerned that a new generation of material engineers lacked the ability to “develop workarounds” when a particular metal needed for manufacture was in short supply.
“In my day, we did this,” he said. “But the new engineers just aren’t trained to go beyond the recipes and work scripts that have been defined for them.”
How did we get here?
The streamlining of business processes, highly beneficial in speeding times to market, likely had much to do with it.
There is that flip side of the coin. What do you do when you can’t get answers to an elusive problem — because your workforce has become so abstracted away from the problem — with technology and automation that they really can’t critically think beyond what their tools tell them? As more employees are trained to push buttons and work with automation, often with no substantive knowledge about the “bare metal” processes that these buttons and automation are running, these knowledge gaps can become real problems for companies.
How to make automation work for your company
What can be done so that companies can maintain and grow their internal knowledge bases and work with the advantages that workflow automation gives them?
Design business processes that can handle exceptions
Vendors of AI and automation say these technologies do mundane work so employees can do important work. That’s fine, but what happens if a process exception arises? Will the employee have the skills to address it?
Continue reading: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/can-ai-compensate-lack-employee/
