The wrong answer to the problem

A chance conversation causes me to post this short sketchy brain fart (a partially formed idea in my little head) that I wrote ages ago…

Before the 1990s – before we had information technology (IT) – large service organisations operated with distributed branches of people working on paper files.

In this model, we had:

The good: decentralised work, with local people (the customer/client) being able to develop ongoing relationships with local people (the staff) who had local knowledge, pride and passion…which enabled bespoke and dynamic solutions to be developed and ‘owned’ (#responsibility) according to what was needed;

The bad: the ‘centre’ (Head Office) not really knowing what was going on at each branch; and as a result

The ugly: the ability for a ‘bad egg’ worker to do improper things and get away with it (e.g. hide the paper file…and much worse)

So, along comes the advent and development of information technology – databases, networks, email, software applications (case management, document management, …)

…and we got the chance to address the bad and the ugly.

Unfortunately, the route chosen – of attempted control through centralisation, specialisation and standardisation – destroyed what was good in the old and created different forms of bad and ugly….and a HUGE amount of waste.

The answer wasn’t to utilise IT for (attempted) control.

It should have been to apply IT to achieve transparency (of what was going on).

These are very different things.

I WANT a personalised and dynamic relationship between one human being (a client) and another (a.k.a. ‘someone actually helping them’). I also want the client and others (e.g. the helper’s peers and management) to be able to easily see what’s going on.

Unfortunately, the centralised, specialised, and standardised response hasn’t delivered this! (Ref. The ‘Spaghetti notes’ phenomenon).

Footnotes:

I’ve written loads of posts over the past couple of years around this theme. This post is just me honing a specific point. Namely, the different aims of transparency and control.

I also note the well-known phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. Or, adjusted slightly, transparency can be an effective regulator.

One thought on “The wrong answer to the problem”

Good points. I remember someone asking John Seddon if IT systems had improved things. His response was something along the lines of: it now makes it more difficult to see the work.

Before, we used to see the piles of files on peoples desks. We could see who had too many cases. We would just stand up and ask if we needed one. The ones at the bottom were the ones that were going to be the next ones we would take. If we had a question about one, we would stand up and ask the person who just sent us the file.

Some files would have a red folder, they had to be worked on urgently.

This certainaly did help to create a local focus.

———

But then, sometimes parts of the files went missing. It was difficult to find them sometimes. We had to keep their contents together (called indexing). It was a bind to look through old ones. And we could not search thousands of files for certain words.

LikeLike

jpmort says:

November 8, 2025 at 3:09 am

Good points. I remember someone asking John Seddon if IT systems had improved things. His response was something along the lines of: it now makes it more difficult to see the work.

Before, we used to see the piles of files on peoples desks. We could see who had too many cases. We would just stand up and ask if we needed one. The ones at the bottom were the ones that were going to be the next ones we would take. If we had a question about one, we would stand up and ask the person who just sent us the file.

Some files would have a red folder, they had to be worked on urgently.

This certainaly did help to create a local focus.

———

But then, sometimes parts of the files went missing. It was difficult to find them sometimes. We had to keep their contents together (called indexing). It was a bind to look through old ones. And we could not search thousands of files for certain words.

LikeLike