Two out of five. That’s how many managers think IT hassles are the worst energy thief at work, according to a recent survey of managers conducted by Chef* magazine.
“The reasonable thing would be to call the IT mess what it is: a serious digital work environment problem,” says IT expert Jonas Söderström, commenting on the survey in the magazine Chef Nr 8 2024.
Söderström believes that digital systems are underestimated as energy thieves at work and lists his six best tips to overcome the problem. Advice that we at Ways share, and highlight in our consulting assignments in business development and requirements setting.
- Evaluate the old. Ensure that current ways of working are thoroughly evaluated before new IT systems are developed or purchased. What is good, what is bad? Are there useful, underestimated side effects of the old way of working that risk disappearing with the new one?
- Set performance goals. Make sure that there are clear performance goals for what the new system should achieve. In addition to the time it takes to perform a task, it may be to ensure that the number of errors is minimized. The number of clicks to do a task can be a rough gauge of how complicated or easy it will be.
- Compare with others. Is the new system already in use in other businesses? Check with the users there how satisfied or dissatisfied they are.
- Demand notification of maintenance. What will the new system require in terms of maintenance, updates and security procedures? Require an accounting, in time and staff. Follow up and check after implementation.
- Ensure usability skills. Ensure that at least one person with usability expertise is present as your ambassador throughout the development and implementation period. If it is a very large project, several may be needed.
- Train and ensure ongoing support. Set aside adequate planned time for education, training and support, with follow-up and rehearsal. Also, make a plan for how to deploy extra resources during implementation, if the system turns out to be more complicated or difficult than feared.
* Webbaserad undersökning utförd av tidningen Chef i maj 2024 med 698 svar. Av respondenterna är 70% kvinnor och 30% män. 41% är mellanchefer eller motsvarande. 32% chefer på lednings-eller stabsnivå och 18% gruppchefer.