This definitely reminds me of all the risk management processes I've seen or participated in.
Of course the meta problem is also one that IT largely claims to have solved and I think you can argue the gap with reality also creates some of our current problems.
I'm not a banker, so let's talk about a widget maker. Back in the day, if you were a widget maker with a satellite factory in... Chile, you basically interacted via phone and telex. You knew you couldn't really know what was going on so (a) you had to trust the people out there (a long standing problem) but also (b) you were virtually forced by circumstance to delegate lots of things to them, because you knew you couldn't know enough.
The promise of IT, be it SAP, spreadsheets or whatever is that you could have all the information flow up and centralise - and along the way, get rid of a slice of lower management. I'd suggest that the reality is that it doesn't quite work - but while people are happy to say: "it doesn't work, we need a better IT system" they are much less happy about the idea of "it doesn't work, maybe we need to have a middle manager post closer to the action and delegate enough power to them to be useful"
Even 20 % emailing spreadsheets seems too high. Haven’t worked much in a big bureaucracy since retiring from the World Bank in 2011, so this is not my area, but why isnt zero percent the optimal number given that people can work from shared websites or network drives ? Emailing spreadsheets seems to create a seriously non-linear problem of version control.
everyone agrees, but spreadsheets are so *bloody* convenient. What generally happens is that someone launches an interesting niche product. Nobody's going to take on the project of building an extension to the risk database for something that does two trades a month, so it gets tracked in a spreadsheet on the product controller's desktop. But then it catches on, and it takes time to get the right spec and everyone's busy, so before you know it there's $100m of notional outstanding in the spreadsheet. Network drives help a bit, but you don't necessarily want traders to have access to the risk management drives for very good other reasons.
The transition team in work want to track issues in excel because that’s what they know. We want to track issues in Jira because it’s the right tool for job. We compromised on duplicating all the data.
Sorry, meant to add here: not everyone has a seat license or access to use, say, Power BI. But everyone has Outlook and Office. Many places the excel usage is closer to 75-80%
Yeah one of the killers is that Outlook plus Office gives you practical access to a level of version control and decentralised audit trail that you would need to spend ridiculous amounts of time to implement in SAP/SAS/Oracle/whatever, and nobody would be able to use it anyway. A well-structured database can definitely answer questions like "Hold on, what did Pat actually send us last month and how does that compare to what they said the month before?", but you'll need to be a trained DBA to operate it, whereas looking up old emails is easy.
This is right up my professional day job interests too - as a solo consultant I used to offer a data audit as an initial in for SMEs or small departments within larger organisations. My guiding principle was trying to shorten data feedback loops so data got to people who could actually do something about it quicker. Sometimes this involved technical solutions but most of the time it's 'just' effective management.
There is often a direct tension in computer security and data between locking things down so Bad Things don't happen, and enabling people do the job they're paid to. 'Shadow IT' is the IT professional's term of art for the sort of guerrilla techniques people use to get round corporate restrictions. I think of the security aspect as one of the ways in which, over time, the tide flows in and out in organisations from decentralised to centralised IT and systems. The cynical view is this is just management reeling from one crisis over-reaction to the other, but there is often good work done in enabling people to get on with stuff and/or tidying up inefficiencies on the crest of the wave in either direction.
There's really interesting stuff there about systems and information flows and control and visibility. Relatedly, there's a reason a work to rule can be one of the most devastating trade union tactics.
Also, can't let the spreadsheets thing go by without restating my strong view on the topic: They are the carbon monoxide-emitting Swiss Army tablesaws of data analysis. They are incredibly powerful and can be used with only a minimum level of competence, and are suited for a wide range of jobs and can be pressed in to service (usually unwisely) in an even wider range. They can very obviously mess you up really badly, but despite that some people are shockingly unaware of even basic safety procedures, and those who do know better sometimes eschew them for speed or convenience. They can also mess you up in insidious ways that rob you of your ability to even notice what's happening.
its not just security as a risk, all that crosswalk between muddy boxes leads to all sorts of inefficiencies in decisions made by middle-management satissficing their arses with what's available, and no one is around long enough to combat the tragedy of the anti-commons. Off-the-shelf is becoming a gothic horror show.
With a declining population the only growth available might be in efficiency gains that can be made in de-gothicising all the walled-gardens. Even the de-frictioning of user interfaces can lead to simplistic cut-off of action.
No, you don't need to steer, just press go, let others worry about tactics…. no, no, I wouldn't agree you are in a meat wave, just be brave and charge straight ahead, look... look.. the steering is really complicated and it just gets in the way of your job and remember blocking troops are cheaper than putting in steering in all the vehicles.
The vast majority of companies I have consulted for all operate on some version of “a 16 billion business run with Outlook and Excel”. Security and sharing through shared drives is harder than just attaching a file for most people.
The other reason for this is because most executives and practitioners aren’t trained to work in data tools more complex than Excel.
Compounding all of this is the usual hodgepodge of incompatible data sources of record because of tiger teams developing tools without coordination or, more importantly, executive leadership realizing its way too expensive to merge all the data sources they have adopted through growth, usually merger and acquisition. Tech is expensive both in terms of time and budget and no one gets promoted for cleaning things up. Relatedly, a brand manager once phrased it to me: “no one ever got promoted for just maintaining a program that already works well.”
This definitely reminds me of all the risk management processes I've seen or participated in.
Of course the meta problem is also one that IT largely claims to have solved and I think you can argue the gap with reality also creates some of our current problems.
I'm not a banker, so let's talk about a widget maker. Back in the day, if you were a widget maker with a satellite factory in... Chile, you basically interacted via phone and telex. You knew you couldn't really know what was going on so (a) you had to trust the people out there (a long standing problem) but also (b) you were virtually forced by circumstance to delegate lots of things to them, because you knew you couldn't know enough.
The promise of IT, be it SAP, spreadsheets or whatever is that you could have all the information flow up and centralise - and along the way, get rid of a slice of lower management. I'd suggest that the reality is that it doesn't quite work - but while people are happy to say: "it doesn't work, we need a better IT system" they are much less happy about the idea of "it doesn't work, maybe we need to have a middle manager post closer to the action and delegate enough power to them to be useful"
Even 20 % emailing spreadsheets seems too high. Haven’t worked much in a big bureaucracy since retiring from the World Bank in 2011, so this is not my area, but why isnt zero percent the optimal number given that people can work from shared websites or network drives ? Emailing spreadsheets seems to create a seriously non-linear problem of version control.
everyone agrees, but spreadsheets are so *bloody* convenient. What generally happens is that someone launches an interesting niche product. Nobody's going to take on the project of building an extension to the risk database for something that does two trades a month, so it gets tracked in a spreadsheet on the product controller's desktop. But then it catches on, and it takes time to get the right spec and everyone's busy, so before you know it there's $100m of notional outstanding in the spreadsheet. Network drives help a bit, but you don't necessarily want traders to have access to the risk management drives for very good other reasons.
Spreadsheets definitely have their conveniences, but managing the growth can be a challenge. Good point on the access control dilemma.
The transition team in work want to track issues in excel because that’s what they know. We want to track issues in Jira because it’s the right tool for job. We compromised on duplicating all the data.
Sorry, meant to add here: not everyone has a seat license or access to use, say, Power BI. But everyone has Outlook and Office. Many places the excel usage is closer to 75-80%
Yeah one of the killers is that Outlook plus Office gives you practical access to a level of version control and decentralised audit trail that you would need to spend ridiculous amounts of time to implement in SAP/SAS/Oracle/whatever, and nobody would be able to use it anyway. A well-structured database can definitely answer questions like "Hold on, what did Pat actually send us last month and how does that compare to what they said the month before?", but you'll need to be a trained DBA to operate it, whereas looking up old emails is easy.
This is right up my professional day job interests too - as a solo consultant I used to offer a data audit as an initial in for SMEs or small departments within larger organisations. My guiding principle was trying to shorten data feedback loops so data got to people who could actually do something about it quicker. Sometimes this involved technical solutions but most of the time it's 'just' effective management.
There is often a direct tension in computer security and data between locking things down so Bad Things don't happen, and enabling people do the job they're paid to. 'Shadow IT' is the IT professional's term of art for the sort of guerrilla techniques people use to get round corporate restrictions. I think of the security aspect as one of the ways in which, over time, the tide flows in and out in organisations from decentralised to centralised IT and systems. The cynical view is this is just management reeling from one crisis over-reaction to the other, but there is often good work done in enabling people to get on with stuff and/or tidying up inefficiencies on the crest of the wave in either direction.
There's really interesting stuff there about systems and information flows and control and visibility. Relatedly, there's a reason a work to rule can be one of the most devastating trade union tactics.
Also, can't let the spreadsheets thing go by without restating my strong view on the topic: They are the carbon monoxide-emitting Swiss Army tablesaws of data analysis. They are incredibly powerful and can be used with only a minimum level of competence, and are suited for a wide range of jobs and can be pressed in to service (usually unwisely) in an even wider range. They can very obviously mess you up really badly, but despite that some people are shockingly unaware of even basic safety procedures, and those who do know better sometimes eschew them for speed or convenience. They can also mess you up in insidious ways that rob you of your ability to even notice what's happening.
Great post
Persuading people to tell me things is half my job as well. Love the muddy box analogy
its not just security as a risk, all that crosswalk between muddy boxes leads to all sorts of inefficiencies in decisions made by middle-management satissficing their arses with what's available, and no one is around long enough to combat the tragedy of the anti-commons. Off-the-shelf is becoming a gothic horror show.
With a declining population the only growth available might be in efficiency gains that can be made in de-gothicising all the walled-gardens. Even the de-frictioning of user interfaces can lead to simplistic cut-off of action.
No, you don't need to steer, just press go, let others worry about tactics…. no, no, I wouldn't agree you are in a meat wave, just be brave and charge straight ahead, look... look.. the steering is really complicated and it just gets in the way of your job and remember blocking troops are cheaper than putting in steering in all the vehicles.
The vast majority of companies I have consulted for all operate on some version of “a 16 billion business run with Outlook and Excel”. Security and sharing through shared drives is harder than just attaching a file for most people.
The other reason for this is because most executives and practitioners aren’t trained to work in data tools more complex than Excel.
Compounding all of this is the usual hodgepodge of incompatible data sources of record because of tiger teams developing tools without coordination or, more importantly, executive leadership realizing its way too expensive to merge all the data sources they have adopted through growth, usually merger and acquisition. Tech is expensive both in terms of time and budget and no one gets promoted for cleaning things up. Relatedly, a brand manager once phrased it to me: “no one ever got promoted for just maintaining a program that already works well.”