[australia] Capturing Processes [was: Engaging contributors]

[Melanie Kendell]

On 17/07/06, Melanie Kendell <melanie.kendell at gmail.com> wrote:
 > On 7/13/06, Matthew Moore <matthew.moore at oracle.com> wrote:
 > ...we are increasingly an economy of knowledge workers...

When I see Knowledge Worker as a category according to the ATO (or
even on something like SEEK) I'll believe we've finally cracked it :)

> On 17/07/06, Marius Coomans <mcoomans at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...capturing and documenting business processes is something we
> all "on paper" promote...They'll pull a 18 month old printed copy out of their desk
> drawer with handwritten notes on it. That's the real process document.
>
> Is that a cultural issue? a technology issue? a management issue?

All of the above.

Cultural and management go hand in hand - people create personal
repositories for many reasons and management need to develop
strategies to counteract those "reasons".

Some of the perceived reasons are:

* knowledge=power - some people are still protective of their
information as a way of protecting their value to the organisation

* lack of empowerment - a corporate culture based on central authority
does not make people comfortable to contribute to, or correct, the
content that is delivered to them (hence handwritten scribbles on the
"official" procedure)

* not my job mentality - keeping content up to date is very rarely
explicitly tasked to anyone

Technology is certainly getting better all the time but it's often not
the technology itself that's the problem but the implementation of the
technology. I'm not always an advocate for formal usability techniques
(they can be overkill) but someone on the implemenations team (if not
everyone) must have a usability focus.

Great to see some excellent discussion on this list.

-Melanie

PS David, can we get the options for the list set to reply to list
rather than to individuals - ta.