Part II
Chapter 3
Productivity Tools for Individuals
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Understanding Needs of Individual
3.2.1 Analyzing Managerial Work
3.2.1.1 Understanding How Managers Work
3.2.1.2 Managers’ Information Dilemma
3.2.1.3 The Changing Management Climate
3.2.2 Analyzing Professional and Technical Work
3.2.2.1 Understanding the Needs of Professional and Technical Knowledge Workers
3.2.3 Analyzing Sales and Marketing Work
3.2.3.1 Characteristics of Sales and Marketing Work
3.2.4 Analyzing Administrative Support
3.2.4.1 Characteristics of Administrative Work
3.2.4.2 Administrative Assistants
3.2.4.3 Paraprofessionals
3.2.4.4 Mail Services Personnel
3.2.4.5 Records Management Personnel
3.2.4.6 Clerical Accounting and General Clerical Personnel
3.2.4.7 Reprographics Personnel/Graphic Services
3.2.4.8 Forms Design Personnel
3.2.4.9 Facilities Management Staff
3.2.5 Computers in the Professional Office
3.2.5.1 Legal Offices
3.2.5.2 Medical Offices
3.3 Matching User Needs to Software Solutions
3.3.1 Defining User Needs
3.3.2 Clarifying Business Objectives
3.3.3 Evaluating Alternative Software Packages
3.4 Evaluating Productivity Tools for Individuals
3.4.1 Desktop Productivity Suites
3.4.2 Activity Management
3.4.2.1 Calendar Management
3.4.2.2 Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
3.4.3 Communications/Networking
3.4.3.1 Voice Mail Systems
3.4.3.2 Electronic Mail
3.4.3.3 Smart Phones and Wireless Communicators
3.4.3.4 Desktop Business Meetings
3.4.4 Decision Support
3.4.4.1 Decision Modeling
3.4.4.2 Data Warehousing, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), and Datamining
3.4.4.3 Project Management
3.4.4.4 Geographic Information Systems (GIS)/Visualization
3.4.4.5 Statistical and Mathematical Analysis
3.4.4.6 Executive Support Systems (ESS)
3.4.5 Desktop Publishing/Multimedia
3.4.6 Web Publishing
3.4.7 End-User Computing (Programming)
3.4.7.1 Fourth-Generation Languages
3.4.8 Customer Relationship Management
3.5 Summary
Learning Objectives
Upon completing this chapter, you should be able to:
~ Identify characteristics of managerial work and relate them to requirements for EUIS.
List characteristics of useful information for decision making.
~ Give examples of useful productivity tools for managers and explain how they improve performance.
~ Describe the characteristics of professional and technical work and relate them to requirements for productivity tools.
Discuss end-user computing, offering reasons for its growth.
Evaluate the impact of word processing as an authoring tool.
Discuss the impact of information technologies on medical and legal practices.
~ Describe characteristics of sales and marketing work and relate them to requirements for effective sales solutions.
~ List examples of productivity tools for sales applications and describe how they affect performance.
~ Identify major administrative applications for EUIS technologies.
~ Understand the basic concepts of administrative support.
~ Differentiate between the word processing needs of clerical and administrative personnel in a production environment and those of casual users such as managers and knowledge workers.
~ Explain how technology is changing the roles of secretaries, administrative assistants, and clerical workers.
~ Discuss how the prevalence of digital networks is changing administrative services.
~ Discuss the problems in managing information in digital, image, and paper formats.
~ Describe image processing systems, and explain how they can be used to improve work flow and business processes.
3.1 INTRODUCTION
We call them PC productivity tools, but have they really led to increased individual productivity? Some say yes; some say no. In fact, results have been mixed. If you were to stroll through a typical corporate office, you would see some desktop devices being used constantly and others collecting dust. What accounts for these differences? That is the subject of this chapter.
The end-user information systems field deals with meeting the needs of individuals and work groups. Thus, understanding how users work and, most importantly, how that work can be changed or transformed through the use of information technology to improve performance, is critical. It is seldom sufficient just to provide new tools. Effective use of Web technology and desktop productivity tools requires transforming the way work is done, not merely automating what is done currently or adding on some new technology solutions. As most organizations have discovered, transforming the way work is done is tough and takes considerable planning and effort to implement successfully. Even in an empowered environment, workers need management support and often the assistance of outside consultants. Generally, the interrelationships are very complex between how individuals perform their jobs and the dynamics of the work group of which they are a part, other work groups with which they interface, and the broader organization. Thus, it is hard to change individual performance without affecting everything else, and a great deal of planning and collaboration are needed to make meaningful changes.
To improve individual performance realistically starts with an understanding of what performance or end results are required in a particular situation and the critical success factors for achieving them. All too often, the approach has been “build it and they will come.” This approach has proven successful in only a small percentage of cases. More often than not, it has resulted in underutilization or disuse.
This chapter focuses on individuals at all levels of the enterprise. It looks especially at the needs of individuals in four major areas: managerial, professional/ technical knowledge, sales and marketing, and administrative support.
3.2 UNDERSTANDING NEEDS OF INDIVIDUALS
It is difficult to generalize about the needs of individuals. Fven in the same company, considerable variation can exist among similar jobs across various functions or business processes within an organization. Job responsibilities for
administrative assistants, for example, can vary considerably among the accounting department, the sales department, the legal division, and the manufac-o turing division. This variation among jobs for managers, knowledge workersi technical professionals, administrators, and sales and marketing positions be-i comes even more widespread across different industries. Requirements fod underwriters, for example, vary considerably among banking, brokerage, andt. insurance. Even within just insurance, needs vary considerably among underwriters depending on whether they specialize in life, health, or property and~ casualty insurance.
Although the same basic principles apply, analysts must assess the needs of~each situation on its own merits. Broad generalizations are not useful when the objective is improving performance on an individual or work group level. The
unique requirements of each situation must be assessed with specific goals in mind.
In the sections that follow, we discuss characteristics of various jobs and how these characteristics shape information technology needs. The discussion is intended to provide a foundation for performing needs analysis and designing appropriate EUIS solutions.
3.2.1 Analyzing Managerial Work
PC productivity tools have been making their way slowly and steadily onto executive desktops. Although the concept of computer support for management decision making, usually called decision support systems, has been around for more than 20 years, use was fairly limited until the advent of the Internet and e-business. Decision support systems (DSS), although not well defined, generally refer to automated tools intended to help managers monitor their companies’ (departments! divisions’) performance, analyze business problems, and formulate decision alternatives. Analysts generally attribute the low acceptance of DSS in the past to limitations of the technology and a failure to meet management needs. Newer PC productivity and communications tools, with graphical user interfaces, have gained much broader acceptance. By far the most widely used tool by managers today is e-mail, and the explosion of e-business makes PCs and digital networks essential tools for every modern manager.
A survey by the San Jose, California, Mercury News indicated that senior-level executives average a 57.5-hour workweek. Such demanding schedules underscore the need for new and better ways to manage organizations in today’s fast-paced, global economy In an age when information often equals power, managers who have access to timely, accurate information are more likely to have the upper hand
Most top officers in Fortune 500 companies now use PCs in the office and at home. In contrast, in 1996, only 34 percent of these managers used PCs in the office and in 1982, only 8 percent. In Leadership and the Computer. Mary Boone suggests that computers extend human intellect, and are therefore thinking tools that are relevant to executives.’ Some technology proponents predict that increased use ci computers by executives will have a major impact on reshaping traditional organizational structures (see chapter 11).
The concept of improving a manager’s performance through support tools is not new. A primary function of the business office always has been to provide support to managers to leverage their time and maximize productivity. This suppon has two primary components:
1. Delegation of work to support staff.
2. Time and activity management.
Support staff to whom managers delegate work generally include some combination of secretaries, administrative assistants, and technical specialists. In delegating tasks, managers give up a certain amount of control over precisely how the work is accomplished. They also must rely on information that is filtered through others rather than personally garnered from primary sources. The time that managers save by delegating is offset partially by the time they must devote to supervising and coordinating the work of others. Generally, as the scope of a manager’s accountability expands, so does the size of the staff that supports the work.
In addition to delegation, managers typically use various tools and techniques to prioritize and manage the demands on their time. Traditional time and activity management tools include telephones, dictation machines, calculators, calendars, tickler files, Rolodexes, and to-do lists.
Managers must decide which tasks to delegate and which to perform themselves. The goal is always to maximize the manager’s efficiency and effectiveness, which adds up to productivity. Efficiency is a measure of the time and effort required to complete tasks, whereas effectiveness is the ability to discern the right tasks to spend time on in the first place. Because effectiveness is more difficult to quantify than efficiency, however, benefits are more difficult to measure. Benefits in effectiveness also take longer to realize because they require changes in behavior. For example, if a manager uses an electronic spreadsheet to produce a monthly report in two hours instead of six, the increased efficiency is obvious. If, however, the manager continues to take six hours to produce the report but includes additional analyses and graphs, is the manager still more efficient? Is the report more effective? The evaluation now becomes more subjective.
An important way in which information technologies increase effectiveness is by changing the delegation equation: Which tasks are most productive for managers to do themselves and which should be delegated? Computers can save time and help managers gain back some of the control over their organizations that was given up as the price of delegation. With better computer support tools, executives are able to extend their span of control (the number of people or departments one manager can oversee effectively). Computers can provide improved access to information, better monitoring and control of operations, and improved communications. Managers who adapt their working styles to capitalize on the new technologies stand to improve both their efficiency and effectiveness.
3.2.1.1 Understanding How Managers Work
Most management studies have focused on decision and information requirements of managers rather than on the process by which information is obtained and decisions are translated into actions to achieve results. Management science has little to say about how the physical limitations of communications restrict the complexity of management tasks that an organization can accomplish.
To determine the complexity of management activities, Booz . Allen & Hamilton provided a number of insights into what knowledge workers (managers, supervisors, professionals, and technical workers) do.2 They studied 300 professionals in 15 major U.S. corporations and developed a series of in-depth case studies by interviewing knowledge workers and recording managers’ use of time. To record their use of time, participants in the study carried a walletlike folder containing a device that beeped at 20-minute intervals. Each time the device beeped, managers recorded what they were doing at the time and rated its importance on a scale from 1 to 10. The participants also recorded other factors relating to work output, activities, and habits. The purpose of the study was to determine how end-user systems could be justified in terms of supporting managerial/professional performance. Investigators used productivity and quality as the two principal criteria by which to analyze that performance. The results of the study provided interesting insights into work habits of knowledge workers. Booz . Allen & Hamilton concluded that most organizations could save 20 percent or more in operating costs by taking advantage of EUIS systems. They concluded that EIJIS systems could reduce office support costs and improve managerial and professional productivity at the same time. Specific findings regarding how managers work included the following.
1. High-level managers make little use of available computer tools. They spend less than 2 percent to 3 percent of their time looking at computer printouts or dealing with information retrieval machines such as terminals or intelligent workstations.
2. Managers spend too much time on nonproductive activities, stich as looking for information and on telephone calls that are incomplete, and not enough time on analytical and planning activities, updating professional skills, or taking part in decision-making processes.
3. Roughly 90 percent of all hard copy activity involves words:
• Graphics are involved in only 5 percent of all hard copy activities.
• A combination of words and numbers occurs in almost 50 percent of
hard copy activities.
• Numbers account for only 7 percent of all hard copy activities.
• Nonmanagers use computer printouts twice as often as managers do.
4. In rating uses of managers’ time, telephone use was rated low except for outgoing external calls because of a combination of the disruptive nature of incoming calls and the less productive time spent seeking people on outgoing calls.
Because managers accomplish tasks through other people, good communication of information is extremely important for effective management. Managers need the right information at the right time. Simply providing more information is not necessarily the answer. A major problem for most managers is filtering through vast amounts of information to find what they need. Unfortunately, technology often simply provides more information more quickly. Systems are most beneficial when they help sort and condense information so that managers receive only the information they need to perform their jobs effectively—at the right time and place and in the right format.
Henry Mintzberg conducted some of the most useful research regarding the work of managers in terms of what they do and how they do it. In The Nature of Managerial Work, he indicated that the classic description of management as planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling does not accurately reflect how managers spend their time or what they do. Familiarity with Mintzberg’s work and that of other researchers who have studied management behavior is important to EUIS analysts and consultants charged with providing tools to assist managers. Some highlights of Mintzberg’s findings that are especially relevant to information technology are summarized here.