James Taylor's Decision Management

Mitch Betts pointed me to an interesting Babson piece - Creating Great Products with Apple's Steve Wozniak, Inventor of the Personal Computer. One particular answer Woz gave caught my eye:

Wozniak: I think design and development should always be done from a point of view that believes the human being is worth more than the technology. You just have to have it in your head that you will apply a lot of effort to bend your hardware and create your software design so that the user has a nice easy flow in using this product. In this way it fits their life as they live it now. The opposite way is where someone decides to put in all the functionality in a way that causes the user to modify the way they do things. This difference is where the huge value is, at least for Apple.

Part of what Woz is talking about here is that you should make the technology you develop do more of the "legwork" so that people can do their thing. Computers should be used to do what they do well (remember lots of facts, process them quickly, access and summarize lots of data) so that people can do what they do well (interact, encourage, listen). Machines designed to help people achieve an objective should do so as quickly, painlessly and sensibly as possible.
It seems to me that decision technologies, and decision management, has a lot to offer in this regard. Automated interactions can be personalized and can focus on what this customer wants. Internal systems can avoid asking workers to step outside their process and use tools to analyze data or look things up. Instead, make the systems can do what they need. For instance:

• An ATM should reflect how this particular customer uses ATMs not present a generic approach.
• A call center operator wants to make a cross-sell offer to a customer to earn a bonus. Tell them what the most effective one is.
• A nurse is treating a patient in a hospital, tell them the right dosage and flag the potential interaction caused by a new prescription
• A prospect on your website wants a price, not a form to refer them to someone
• A customer wants coverage now, not in a few days time

And so on. Keeping staff and customers moving forward means providing smart enough systems - systems that can make the decisions needed and treat individuals as individuals.