Tell
Wayne Fisher- and Slawo Wesolkowski
N
ew technologies are so com-
monplace today that many
organizations and businesses
are faced with daunting prob-
lems of how to go about
introducing these technolo-
gies. One problem lies in determin-
ing the impact of the new technolo-
gy on the work processes and
productivity of employees. Intro-
ducing a new technology to the
workplace is a multidimensional
problem that can be addressed
through a number of specialized
disciplines including change man-
agement, project management, and
business process reengineering. A
key step any organization needs to
make in properly introducing a new
The authors are with NCR Cma&
Ltd., Waterloo, Ontario, Cannda.
Email: (Wayne.Fisher; Slawo.
Wesolkowski) @ W&vh. NCR.coiii
28 0278-0079/99/510.00019991EEE
technology to the workplace is to
assess who will be impacted direct-
ly or indirectly by this change and
how. This is a critical concern for
organizations as they increasingly
move to data rich, networked envi-
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 1999
ess
ronments, since both the number of
individuals affected and the pace of
change will continue to increase
dramatically.
TECHNOSTRESS AS THE PACE
OF CHANGE QUICKENS
New technologies are constant-
ly being introduced, and those sys-
tems are becoming more and more
complicated. The changes are also
more and more frequent. In many
companies, it is commonplace to
upgrade software packages such as
email, virus scans, and office
suites several times in a year.
Many companies are experiencing
the pressures of continuous reengi-
neering and process change, driven
by new technologies and technolo-
gy upgrades, as an everyday fact of
life. They are trying to become
more “current” by continuing the
conversion of earlier generation
processes systems to semi- and
fully automated systems. Many populations (especially, if those improvements that are localized in
paper-based information systems users have little or no technologi- specific departments or individuals
are now coming on-line with com- cal background). may not produce overall improve-
panies establishing intranets or In a society that prides itself on ments when measured at the level
local Internet networks. There is a accepting change, and indeed fos- of the organization as a whole [ 5 ] .
certain malaise that has developed tering change, many organizations All of these problems are fur-
in organizations throughout the are falling behind or failing. One ther accentuated by the lack of
world: technostress - a combina- of the major challenges to remain agrecd upon methodologies and
tion of technology fatigue and competitive lies in determining the accurate measurement tools to
aversion [ I ] . impact of the new technology on assess the amount of productivity
The problem is further exacer- the work processes and productivi- gained or lost when utilizing a new
bated by the resistance to technol- ty of individuals working in an technology.
ogy shown by the population at organization. Another challenge
large and specifically by many lies in determining the moat effec- ASSESSING THE RISKSOF
employees of those companies that tive methods for managing the NEWTECHNOLOGIES
are trying to rethink themselves in start-to-end introduction process Organizations introduce tech-
terms of new technology or for a specific technology and/or nology to support business objec-
automation. Multiple channels for environment. tives such as gaining a competitive
delivery or transmission of infor- Why would companies be con- edge, or at the very least keeping
mation such as phone. fax, various cerned about the impact of intro- up with the competition (i.e., as a
forms of paper, electronic mail, ducing new technology on price for staying in business). For
pagers, voice messaging systems, processes and productivity? What some companies the ultimate goal
iling people from are the risks of introducing those is to become a technology leader.
every direction. It is becoming technologies’? Once a company decides to accept
harder to manage the information From a practical point of view, a new technology, it is faced with a
flow in this data rich society. there are two reasons. First, a tech- host of new questions:
The organizations themselves nology that is introduced poorly 0 How does the organimtion know
have only limited resources to sup- can lead to a longer than anticipat- what changes it is facing’?
port training programs for individ- ed (or budgeted for) payback time 0 What are the criteria for suc-
uals on the use of the new technol- or even loss of investment due to cess? Finishing the project with-
ogy or upgraded features, let alone non-use or ineffective use. There in budget? On time‘? At all‘?
how to install applications and cus- are many examples and studies on 0 How effectively will the technolo-
tomize the technology for their the problem of the productivity gy meet the business requirements
own needs. Weill and Rosen [2] paradox (31, 141. In many cases we that led to it being introduced‘?
point out that this has resulted in have yet to determine whether Ultimately, introducing a new
increasing numbers of people suf- companies are actually increasing technology represents a risk that
fering from technostress. They productivity with more sophisti- must be assessed and managed.
have summarized a research litera- cated technology or whether they The current methodologies
ture showing that less than 15% of have to use the time gained to used by organizations for introduc-
the population is willing to experi- manage new problems. Second. if ing new technology include
ment and play with technology. the technology cannot be brought change man age men t , bus i ness
The other 85% can be character- on-stream in time, the organiza- process re-engineering, project
ized as either hesitant users, the tion’s productivity could lag rela- management, process redesign,
50-60% of people who are willing tive to the competition, thereby. technical support and training, and
to use technology as long as they making it less effective and/or effi- direct user training.
have prompting and cient than its competitors. Both of The problems associated with
users who are outright resistant, these scenarios can lead to a coni- introducing new technologies per-
the 30-40% of people who need pany’s ultimate failure. It is, therc- sist despite this formidable array
extensive support if they are to use fore, critical for companies to be of tools, techniques, and manpow-
technology effectively. This find- able to embrace technologies as er. At the organizational level. the
ing suggests that the model of they become available. literature generally shows that rel-
informal “self learning” used by This adoption has to be coii- atively few Information Technolo-
many organizations when intro- ducted i n the right fashion for a gy (IT) projects finish on time
ducing new technology is in direct company to be SLKCCSS~LI~. Intro- while many fail. A study by the
conflict with the learning charac- ducing technology in the right way Standish Group (91 has shown that
teristics and needs of their user is important because productivity only 16% of software implementa-

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 1999

 Business Process
Re-engineering vidual processes at players in an organization. There is
Change Process the local level, but a need for such a determination at
Management Re-design does not focus on both the conceptual and analytic
systematic analysis levels. At the conceptual level, the
Introducing
Who is How are they of change through- need is to recognize that different
Technology impacted? out the organization. groups are affected by technology

Project
Management
v User Training
Technical
Support and Training

I
Technical support
and training are criti-
cal, but do not focus
on how business
processes are affect-
in different ways and require dif-
ferent methodologies to meet their
needs. At the analytic level the
need is to determine the specific
changes that must be incorporated
Fig. I . E1enierzt.r o j adaptive process redesinri. ed. Finally, user by each group and how best to
training is critical to manage those changes.
tion projects can be described a supporting the introduction of any Finally, a structured, disciplined
successful while the remainder are new technology, but usually focus- approach to planning and manag-
either late, over budget, less func- es on technology features without ing the day-by-day introduction of
tional, or cancelled outright. At the taking into account differences in new technology is lacking. While
level of the groups and individuals individual learning styles or the new technologies are introduced on
who are directly affected by the education of the team charged with an ongoing basis, there is no spe-
technology, there is very little doc- managing the introduction of the cific discipline that has grown up to
umentation available on how many technology. take responsibility for this area.
people use a specific technology Second, there is no overall Thus, we have professional associ-
and how effectively they do so. framework that links these ations and methodologies for
We believe that the failure to methodologies into a cohesive designing systems (System Archi-
effectively introduce new technol- whole. Generally, projects related tecture, Software Engineering).
ogy in organizations can be traced to introducing technology incorpo- managing projects (Project Man-
to four key issues. rate most if not all of these ele- agement), technical support (Cus-
First, none of the methodologies men t s . For example, business tomer Support organizations). but
identified earlier is by itself suffi- process reengineering will incor- none to assist organizations in
cient to successfully meet the chal- porate project management, introducing technology in a sys-
lenges posed by technology. Typi- change management, process tematic and disciplined way.
cally, change management focuses redesign, technical support and
on organizational structures and training, and user training. The key PROPOSED
FRAMEWORK
staff related functions such as com- issue here is to link the methodolo- FOR INTRODUCING NEW
munications and motivation. It does gies in a 'way that supports apply- TECHNOLOGY
not focus on the analytic and skills- ing the appropriate level of change The lack of a systematic frame-
related issues involved in planning required for a particular audience work for planning and managing
for process change and mastering or a particular situation. One new the introduction of new technolo-
the new features and processes. techno1og.y may change most of an gies. coupled with the lack of a
Business process reengineering organizati'on's processes to such an disciplined, structured approach to
focuses on business process analy- extent that business process doing this work leaves new users
sis and introducing as much change reengineering is called for on a of technology at a disadvantage
as is required to take advantage of wide scale while another may and their organizations at risk. In
the new technology [6]. However, directly affect only one depart- order for organizations to take full
sometimes this is more change than ment. Other technologies may advantage of new technologies,
the organization needs in some impact soine or all processes, but someone needs to provide both
areas [7], and as a result analysis of only to the extent that process information about change and
changes in areas not directly affect- modificatilsns are required, rather assistance to different groups to
ed by the reengineering process do than wholesale reengineering. understand the changes they are
not get as much attention. While each methodology has its facing and how best to respond.
Project Management incorpo- place, there is no methodological Leaving people to react to the new
rates and manages all the elements umbrella that links all the method- technology, rather than being
of a new technology, but may not ologies intr) a cohesive whole. proactive, is too risky.
identify where changes beyond the Third, there is no framework for Establishing a framework for
main focus of the project occur. determining the impact of a new determining the impact of a new
Process redesign focuses on indi- technology on each of the different technology on all the affected

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 1999


departments and staff in an organi-
zation is critical to the establish-
ment of a disciplined, structured
approach. This framework needs to
build on and extend the established
methodologies to answer two basic
questions: 1. Who is affected? and
2. How are they affected‘?(see Fig.
1 ) . The framework needs to
include the following elements:
0 Dividing impacted groups into at
least four entities: project man-
agers (the people charged with
planning for and managing the
introduction of the new technol-
ogy), direct users of the technol-
ogy (groups at or close to the
point of technology insertion),
infrastructure groups (functions
supporting introduction of the
technology and the direct users),
and indirect users of data, infor-
mation or processes that change
as a result of changes made to
the environment of the direct
users of the new technology (see
Fig. 2).
0 Developing methodologies for
educating the groups in charge
of introducing a new technology
about how the technology works
and how different groups will be
affected.
0 Recognizing that many of the peo-
ple indirectly affected by the intro-
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 1999
Indirect Impacts
duction of the new
technology will Infrastructure
themselves be
responsible for
identifying how the
technology will
affect them and
their work process-
es, as well as for
making the required
modifications with ’Fig. 2: Who is itnlmcted by the intmdiiction of LI new technology?
relatively little out-
side support. This includes recog- introduce new technologies to the
nizing that the changes will specific needs of each user group.
involve adapting their current 0 Aligning the current methodolo-
processes on an as needed basis gies and new communications,
rather than participating in a analytic, and knowledge transfer
more comprehensive and system- tools to the requirements of each
atic process reengineering effort of the impacted groups (See
with its associated analytic and Table I).
knowledge transfer tools.
0 Developing both analytic tools Case Study: The Banking
t o identify changes in skill Industry
requirements and processes, and Currently banks in North Amer-
knowledge transfer tools to com- ica and elsewhere use a well estab-
municate those changes to lished semi-automated process for
groups affected indirectly. These validating checks and deposit tick-
tools would include task model- ets and posting withdrawals and
i n g and skills mapping, as well deposits to accounts. This process
as a mixture of classroom and is split between two environments.
on-the-job training. One uses semi-automated worksta-
0 Focusing on the information tions where a single operator is
requirements of each of the par- responsible for keying the value of
ticipating groups as a means of the checks and deposit tickets, ver-
matching methodologies used to ifying the integrity of deposits,

Introduction of an I
Processing System
he Point of Tech
tream from P
Human Resources
Training
Forms Administration
Audit
Change Management
Branches responding to customer inquiries
Marketing
Quality Management
Bookkeeping
printing the processing date and
value on the each document, and
making corrections to transactions
that contain errors. Checks are
then transferred to a second semi-
automated environment where
information about the checks is
captured by high speed sorting
machines and transmitted to host
computers for posting to accounts.
Finally, the checks are sorted for
disposition as part of the same
process.
Business pressures have led to
the development of new technolo-
gies that increase the degree of
automation and as a result change
the work organization of the areas
involvcd in processing checks.
Major changes include:
The in[-roduction of imaging
technologies which use paper
scanning technology to capture
digital iinages of checks for dis-
play on Zomputer screens.
The introduction of computer-
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 1999
based technology for reading
handwritten and printed num-
bers, thereby, reducing the pro-
portion of documents that need
to be keyed manually.
Breaking up of an “each opera-
tor does all processes” work
organization into a sequential
series of specialixd jobs.
0 Integration of the transaction val-
idation and check sorting envi-
ronments into a single worktlow.
0 Automation of system workflow
management.
0 Transition froin a standalone
workstation environment into a
networked environment with
new technical infrastructure and
support requirements.
0 Automation of error corrections.
Experience with banks taking
on this new technology showed
that early adopters had many prob-
lems understanding the changes
they were facing and the actions
they needed to take to prepare their
organizations to manage the
changes. As a result, the iniplemen-
tation projects of the early adopters
were late and they had difficulty
meeting their business case.
This led the vendor to develop
and introduce a series of workshops
[ X I aimed at helping the technology
adopters understand the changes and
providing guidance on how to
address them. The analysis conduct-
ed prior to development of the work-
shop identified a wide range of orga-
nizational impacts that spanned
planning, implementation. produc-
tion support, and long term mainte-
nance. The impacts included: reengi-
neering of the directly affected
departments; process changes in
directly affected upstream and
downstream departments (branches,
customer inquiries): requirements
for technical support resources (net-
working, host communications),
requirements for administrative and
non-technical support (Human
Resources, Training); and process
changes in indirectly affected
departments (bookkeeping, records).
See Table I1 for an elaboration.
 Workshop participants included each of the four groups involhed in house or with outside help include:
management and staff from all this process. This creates a synergy Is this reengineering or modifi-
directly affected departments. between the different system com- cation of processes?
Education about how the new tech- ponents, thereby ensuring that the How much control should be
nology worked, key planning whole is greater than the sum of its kept within the organization
issues, and supporting information parts. This approach allows people experiencing the change‘?
were provided in focused sessions. involved in new technology intro- Does the scale of the change justi-
Departments indirectly affected duction to leverage the best quali- fy the cost of outside consultants?
were identified during overview ties of the existing practices with- Do the people in-house have all
sessions. Long lead time items that out introducing further problems. the required skills?
had potential to delay project com- Third, this framework recognizes Do the people in-house have all
pletion were identified and Project the need to develop analytic and the information?
Managers were encouraged to knowledge transfer tools to sup- How should the information be
communicate changes associated port project managers and indirect delivered to them?
with the project to the wider bank users, groups whose needs are not Does the organization have suffi-
audience as early as possible. consistently met by current cient internal resources to sup-
methodologies. port the change process?
BENEFITS OF THE PROPOSED Ultimately. the contribution of These questions need to be
FRAMEWORK this framework lies in carefully answered in an interdisciplinary
The framework for introducing examining both the direct and indi- framework that integrates the knowl-
technology into an organization rect impacts of a technology on the edge, skills and experience of cus-
presented here is based on an day-to-day operations of a busi- tomers, vendors, and consultants.
examination of the technology and ness and applying specific
the current business processes to methodologies to ease the intro-
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 1999 33