This was fascinating. Government forms are one of the most boring and dreaded things to deal with. Even from the point of view of a programmer, my initial thought would be that I have no interest...
This was fascinating. Government forms are one of the most boring and dreaded things to deal with. Even from the point of view of a programmer, my initial thought would be that I have no interest in ever doing anything related to government forms. But when you're empowered to actually help the people processing them, and those people are on board, it can actually be an interesting job. I especially liked when he talked about how they reworked many forms to make them shorter, clearer, and more accessible. So many web forms (not just government - even credit card entry forms) are so so so poorly done on the web. I wish more companies would take the job seriously.
Many organizations (especially the government) hate change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the best summary of many. This is why so much backend processing is still done with COBOL. I work...
Many organizations (especially the government) hate change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the best summary of many. This is why so much backend processing is still done with COBOL.
I work with ERP systems. There are two things you need to do in order to be successful at implementing an ERP system and actually receiving benefits from doing so:
Remove systemic management barriers for business processes (often called silos).
Redesign your business processes to match the patterns your ERP system provides.
So many organizations refuse to do #1 and in turn usually do the opposite of #2, and then wonder why their implementation is slow, buggy, and incredibly expensive.
I did maybe 1% of this guy's work once for a client and this sounds so familiar. You just can't escape the social and political aspects of such organizational tasks. It's a great answer to any...
On average, it took me about 30 minutes to make a digital form and five weeks to meet with, earn the trust of, and get buy-in from the employees who would use it.
I did maybe 1% of this guy's work once for a client and this sounds so familiar. You just can't escape the social and political aspects of such organizational tasks. It's a great answer to any calls for simplifying flawed systems.
This was fascinating. Government forms are one of the most boring and dreaded things to deal with. Even from the point of view of a programmer, my initial thought would be that I have no interest in ever doing anything related to government forms. But when you're empowered to actually help the people processing them, and those people are on board, it can actually be an interesting job. I especially liked when he talked about how they reworked many forms to make them shorter, clearer, and more accessible. So many web forms (not just government - even credit card entry forms) are so so so poorly done on the web. I wish more companies would take the job seriously.
Many organizations (especially the government) hate change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the best summary of many. This is why so much backend processing is still done with COBOL.
I work with ERP systems. There are two things you need to do in order to be successful at implementing an ERP system and actually receiving benefits from doing so:
So many organizations refuse to do #1 and in turn usually do the opposite of #2, and then wonder why their implementation is slow, buggy, and incredibly expensive.
I did maybe 1% of this guy's work once for a client and this sounds so familiar. You just can't escape the social and political aspects of such organizational tasks. It's a great answer to any calls for simplifying flawed systems.