As promised in last month's newsletter I wrote about the functional separation of work.
The Humpty Dumpty Syndrome which is symbolic of the design of many organizations is epidemic. Service organizations pay the price as much or more than manufacturing. Quality Digest picked up the article for their
February 15 show (comments start about the 9:30 mark) and demonstrate that the evidence is irrefutable.
- Thinking about the design of work
- Thinking about the management of work
These two things are pieces of a whole and cannot be mutually exclusive. One effects the other - getting knowledge about our current design leads us to the thinking that went into the design. Changing design without understanding the thinking will just leads to another poor design. I have seen this approach fail too often.
However, worse are those organizations that embrace process improvement. They optimize the function or form cross functional teams with very different aims.
A friend of mine told that a large banking software company has split sales and software development. Sales had become dominant over the software factory - it is sad, pathetic and ridiculous rolled into one thing. They are part of the same system fighting each other for a power grab. They have one thing in common . . . a customer, but they have different functional objectives to hit and the two disciplines might as well be from different planets. No shared aim - customers will not tolerate this for long.
IT companies selling software have goals to sell software and not enhance or enable their customers. Billions are wasted on software every year as the "glue that binds the functions." Except IT companies ignore redesigning the work and the thinking in management. They don't know how.
Outsourcing provides the same flawed thinking. Outsource the pieces for less cost. Failure demand blows this out of the water. Don't outsource until you get a decent design with the appropriate management thinking. Thinking about costs is NOT the right thinking.
The functional separation of work is only one avenue of flawed thinking, but important one. Getting evidence is always the first important step to understanding the damage.