LTYM - Love the Manual Solutions

Letters to a Young Manager

Love the Manual Solutions, #60
LTYM > Process and Operations Management

Dear Sophie,

***

Some may tell you that the job of IT is to recommend IT solutions. But that's not the whole truth. Sometimes a manual solution is the better recommendation.

I remember the Katrina Hurricane response [1]. Donors were very generous. A number of sponsors lived in the New Orleans area who were supporting children overseas with a monthly pledge. During the crisis at home, we decided that sponsors in the area should be refunded their sponsorships for the month by electronic bank transfers (EFT). It was the right thing to do.

The marketing department asked if we could write a program to do this. It would have taken a few weeks and cost more than the refunds. And this was only going to be used once. So I recommended we hire some temps to work with the Finance department and do it manually. It was done in a few days, for far less cost.

I learned from this that requests for IT help should first answer three questions:

1. How often does this problem occur?
2. How many people does it impact?
3. How much data is involved?

If the answer you hear is not "lots" to all three, you probably are better off doing it manually.

***

Sincerely,
Ed

________________________

[1] while the basis of this story is true, the actual events have been adapted for this story.

Takeaways:

Manual is sometimes best

Discussion Questions:

1) Can you point to IT programs that were written for special, one-time occasions?
2) What were some alternate ways of doing this?
3) What are some of the pros and cons of the manual approach?

For Further Reading:

1) Also compare the legend of the Russian Space Program solution to the pen that writes under weightless conditions: use a pencil. See Letter #161