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September 04, 2007Inbox Zero
First, I apologize to regular readers of this blog who have been wondering what has happened to it recently. It has been a busy Summer! In particular, development of the next version of HumanEdj has taken up much of my thoughts.
I will be writing more about this (free) software in coming months - the problem that HumanEdj solves, namely how to collaborate more efficiently, appears to be pretty much ubiquitous in the working world. Things have certainly changed from when I first started publishing on the subject of Human Interaction Management, in late 2004! Back then, the claim that we needed a new form of process management for human-driven processes was treated with a mixture of incomprehension, disbelief and (to my surprise) even anger, from people who had spent a long time getting to grips with BPM as it was and mostly still is. Now everyone from Bill Gates to the BBC is talking about how the modern workplace is in crisis.
I hear this everywhere I go now, whether it is on consultancy assignments or chatting to people socially. The key symptom is poor use of email - a groaning inbox, being unable to get results from sending messages, misunderstandings between colleagues, and much more. A colleague recently pointed me at the interesting GoogleTech video Inbox Zero - if you don't have time or patience for the entire hour's talk, a summary is also available.
The talk is interesting not so much for its content, which as the presenter states up front is hardly rocket science, but for the number of hits - 147287, last time I looked! The fact that such a conventional chat about email handling is receiving this level of attention indicates how many people are struggling to make use of this most basic workplace tool, and how serious a problem it is. The Inbox Zero video is part of a sudden flood of talk on the topic, such as this article from the Wall Street Journal.
However, most of these writings simply scratch the surface of the real issues. As the summary of Inbox Zero referred to above points out:
Email is a medium. It’s not where the action is. I have a question here though: I agree with the fact that the action is not in email. But could we put the action there? If email is the core tool of a knowledge worker, shouldn't more tools integrate with email? E.g. why can't I just write a document in my email? Or the other way around: why can't I just write a document in Word and decide that I want to send the content as an email? (Note: I don't mean attaching the document to an email!)
Indeed. Further, there are deep underlying problems not addressed by any of these writers. Just to give one example, most people now routinely confuse asynchronous and synchronous communication - in particular they tend to use email where telephone is more appropriate. Hence emails acquire false urgency. There are many more examples, relating to deeper interpersonal issues such as responsibility, authority, confidentiality and competency.
The next version of HumanEdj, due for release later this year, tackles these issues head on. With zero configuration (if you use Outlook - otherwise you need to tell it where your email lives) it will categorise all your email for you, outgoing as well as ingoing, including both body text and document attachments. You'll then be able to see at a glance who you are currently dealing with, what the dealings are about, who you are waiting on, who is waiting on you, and much more - in particular, why all this is the way it is.
These features, however, are just the icing on the cake - you get them "for free", before you even start thinking about structuring your work in process terms, which is the real power of the software. However, it is the Human Interaction Management underpinning that makes the approach possible.
TAKE AWAY
Can you see the writing on the wall? It is a clear warning - if you don't act in the very near future to solve the human collaboration problems of your business, you won't have a business for much longer.
In the next postings to this blog, I will say more about these problems, and how they are addressed by the principles and patterns of Human Interaction Management. I also hope to include some sneak previews of the free HumanEdj software that provides full support for the ideas.
If you would like to be part of the "new world of work", rather than left behind by it, stay tuned.
Posted by keithhb in
Management
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Been there, done that, seen the writing on the walls of overflowing inboxes. Back in 1996 when the company decided to go "paper-less" we had a decision up on the copy board. E-mail alone is only push information, we needed also pull information, libraries or the like. So we adopted what is now a granddaddy of collaboration software, Lotus Notes. Problem is, by now we have thousands of more-or-less collaborative libraries with about half as many access control groups. Wikis do help ease the inbox pressures, as Lee Lefever shows in 4 minutes of Wikis in plain English. Managerial discipline helps, such as not answering questions in their e-mail reply but including hyperlinks to the company's library references. Yet, how do you migrate an established base of humans and their shared information habits to be part of the "new world of work"?
Posted by: Bernd in Japan at October 18, 2007 07:55 PM
Hi Bernd
To make a donkey move, you can use a carrot, a stick, or both.
I'd go for carrot every time. Getting people to migrate en masse is like herding cats. Unless they want to adopt a new system for their own reasons, they'll just find new and imaginative ways to ignore, subvert, or work around it.
For most workers, the best carrot is money, but the next best is time. I can't offer people money, but am hoping that HumanEdj will save them time from the start, simply by managing their inboxes and documents with zero effort on their part. If so, they will end up using HIM principles in the workplace for their own reasons - not for mine!
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All the best
Keith
Posted by: Keith Harrison-Broninski at October 19, 2007 12:59 AM
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