Watch Out For Speed Traps
You're late for an appointment. The traffic is heavy. Every minute or two you check your watch. You never noticed how quickly that minute hand really moves. Now it seems to be racing as fast as your heartbeat. You think there is no hope of making your time commitment when suddenly you see a path through the cars. If you just make a quick lane change, and push the speed limit ever so slightly, you should be on time.
You make your move, and everything is working perfectly. You can see the end in sight. But then another sight dashes your hopes. It's the sight of flashing red lights in your rear view mirror. In you zeal to get there fast, you missed the speed trap. Now instead of being only a few minutes late for your engagement, you'll miss it entirely.
Photo Radar
When it comes to Technology Fit in our organizations, the speed traps aren't as obvious as a police officer parked by the roadside with his radar gun aimed our way. They don't stop us with red flashing lights and give us a nice big ticket to knock some sense into our heads. They are more like hidden photo radar. They come intertwined within our day to day workflow, in subtle misuses of technology. Usually we don't even know we've been caught.
Have you ever had the experience of working in a program you use everyday when a fellow employee looks over your shoulder and says something like "Why are you doing it that way? Don't you know you can just click there and it will do that automatically?" You sit in stunned disbelieve at how much time that little tip alone will trim off your daily routine. You begin to use it immediately, and you never go back. If only you'd known before.
I Never Even Knew
What really happened there? Your fellow worker showed you a speed trap you didn't even know existed. You might have driven by that spot every day for the next ten years and never realized you were getting caught. You thought you were just using the program. There are lots of ways to use a piece of software. They aren't all the same. A lot of them are speed traps.
It's great when you're shown these kinds of traps and can change your behavior for the better, but it would be a mistake to stop there. That would be like deciding to speed down a different road, to avoid the trap you found on the first route. What you really need to do is get to the root and eliminate the cause of speed traps themselves. You know what causes speed traps? Speeding! If people didn't speed, do you think police officers would waste their time sitting at the side of the road pointing their radar at you? If we weren't so busy speeding through our jobs, a lot of those speed traps would go away too.
Slow Down
It probably sounds impossible in today's crazy business environment, but it's wisdom from the past that has never really changed. Technology hasn't changed it either. We've got things so backward today that instead of using technology to help us slow down a bit, we've taken its accelerated capabilities as a cue to load up on ourselves and do things ten times as much, ten times faster. There's nothing wrong with going fast as long as you observe the speed limit. It's when you exceed the safe limit that casualties happen.
What your fellow staff member showed you was just the tip of the iceberg, a visible clue to a deeper issue. The speed trap showed you that you've never slowed down long enough to learn the tool you were using in the first place. This is a huge problem in organizations, and a significant source of Technology Misfit. Managers invest thousands of dollars in state of the art technologies to equip their staff for performance, but never train them how to use what they've got their hands on. Who's got time for that? There's too much work to do!
The Speed Of Going Slow
I heard a phrase once that really describes this principle of Technology Fit. It's called "the speed of going slow." The truth is, most times you have to slow down to speed up.
It may be just taking the time to organize before you tackle a messy project. It might be closing the door of your office to catch 5 minutes of quiet in the middle of a challenging day. As we've seen above, often it is completing your technology investment, by seeing that training for yourself or your staff is a must. Sometimes it is investing in a custom solution that takes speed traps you can't change yourself, and moves them to the next level of efficiency.
If you want to achieve Technology Fit in your organization, and avoid getting caught by speed traps, start by slowing down. Even the best drivers need to take time to learn the fundamentals, before they are ready to get out on the freeway.
Kel Good
MCT, MCITP, MCPD, MCSD for Microsoft.NET
Kel Good is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Developer who specializes in consulting with business decision makers and managers regarding the
Technology Fit of their organizations.
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