Don’t Forget the Wetware
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| Alt Text: photo of a little girl wearing VR googles. Photo by Giu Vicente on Unsplash |
This story is (obviously) untrue: despite recent advances in AI, our machines are a long way off this sort of sentience. However, if you replace the computers in the story with people, this becomes the sort of situation that many organisations face every day. In fact, it has been estimated that 84% of digital transformations fail. This is partly because of the above fact about humans - as we are inherently flexible, we, unlike computers, can flex back to our previous ways of working and reject changes.
As experts in change management, this is the problem {n}.bora specialises in. Through a range of techniques, we ensure that your setup is suited to the people in your organisation, limiting resistance to change. However, all of these techniques consist of placing as much, if not more, emphasis on people. In this blog, we thought we’d explain two ideas that can help you shift your perspective away from tech and towards people - wetware and human centred design.
What is Wetware?
Wetware, most broadly defined, is the biological component of IT systems architecture. This is often used in the context of brain-computer interfaces and other situations, both theoretical and real, where humans and machines are integrated into one system. However, it can also be used in the context of everyday IT to consider people as part of an IT system rather than users of the system. In other words, you consider an IT setup to consist of three parts: hardware (the machines people use), software (the programmes run by the machines) and wetware (the people who use the machines) rather than just hardware and software.
This means that you see your people and their processes as part of your system and take them into consideration when you make changes to it like you would with any other part of the system. You can do this via making sure that any changes you implement would work with your current system (i.e. making sure any new hardware or software is suited to your people), or editing your system to fit the new changes (i.e. changing how your people work to fit the new system). Here, however, we run into the issue we encountered in the introduction: humans are more flexible than IT, meaning that changes you ask them to make aren’t guaranteed to stick. This implies that, if possible, it is easier to make changes to your IT by fitting your hardware and software around your wetware/people, rather than fitting your people around your hardware and software.
This sounds straightforward enough, but raises the question of how to fit hardware and software around people. One way of doing this is through the idea of human centred design.
What is Human Centred Design?
Popularised by design and consultancy firm IDEO, human centred design is a form of design that focuses on ensuring that the product is suited to the user’s actual needs, rather than the needs the designer assumes. Through beginning the design process with a stage of in-depth user observation and keeping the user in mind throughout the design process, it is ensured that the product is truly fit-for-purpose. This makes the change management process easier - going back to my original story, the new software would have been as suited to the hardware as the old software, ensuring that it wouldn’t have been rejected by its users. IDEO gives the pertinent example of when they were asked to design a data entry device to be used by nurses during a medical procedure. Originally conceived as a two-handed device, the design team realised that this wouldn’t be practical when they observed nurses in the field, as they noticed that nurses would usually hold the patient’s hand during the procedure. In response to this, the team created a device which could be operated one-handedly. This is something that would likely not occur to someone who hasn’t witnessed the procedure (as handholding isn’t technically part of the process) but would still have a major impact on the usability of the device. This demonstrates how taking the time to observe how people perform processes is key to the success of a design.
Although performing a digital transformation or implementing an IT system may not be as design-heavy as creating a medical device from scratch (you will likely be using pre-brought hardware and software, for example), starting with observing how your system will be used and keeping the user in mind are still key.
When choosing an appointment booking system for a busy doctor’s surgery, for example, software which is less functional but quicker should be chosen over slower software with greater functionality, as the priority for this situation will be booking appointments quickly to make sure that patients aren’t waiting in the queue for too long.
These ideas were key for {n}.bora when building an app to allow construction workers to complete on site documentation digitally. One of the first things we realised after meeting with team members was that this app needed to have offline functionality, as many construction sites were in areas without good phone service, meaning that devices wouldn’t always be connected to the internet. To combat this, we created a system where any documents submitted whilst offline would be stored in a cache until the app regained internet connection, and then submitted to a cloud system. We also made the interfaces simple and chunky, so they would be easy to operate if the user were wearing gloves or working in the rain. By doing this, we made sure the app was suited to the situation it was going to be used in.
How Can {n}.bora Help?
As mentioned above, {n}.bora are change management specialists. This means that, rather than just looking at the IT, we study the processes and wider organisation around it to make sure it fits in. Like with the construction site app example, we will look at real processes and build any IT around these. If you are looking for support with creating IT infrastructure which is tailored to your team and circumstances, speak to us and we will be more than happy to help you.
It’s easy to believe that choosing the best IT is an entirely technical question. However, considering your people and their processes as part of the system will mean this new IT is as useful as possible, helping it integrate into your organisation.
