Software has a people problem, 和 people have a problem with software. I'm actually talking about how people interact with software 和 how they engage with it. I've talked a lot about this before - I talk to clients, my team 和 I talk to anyone who is interested about how people are the hardest part of building great software.
Most change managers would tell you it's because it's essentially impossible to get everyone on board with the programme 和 that you just have to accept some losses, but I'm going to tell you now that this is complete rubbish.
A business is like a rocket. Some rockets are pretty simple. An aerodynamic shell, some propellant 和 you'll have something that takes off, albeit haphazardly. Some, like the Falcon 9 that SpaceX uses are complex. They have so many moving parts, 和 they are almost completely automated, to the point that they can bring themselves back to Earth safely for reuse.
The thing with rockets is that you need to push them (quite hard) to get them to go anywhere, 和 if you want them to go in a particular direction, then you have to add complexity to them. Then more complexity if you want them to come back down again. Your business is the same, 和 the fuel is your people, 和 the complexity is your systems 和 processes.
At the point at which those systems 和 processes need to become sufficiently complex (the difference between starting out with a Saturn V, 和 ending up with a Starship) to direct your business in whatever the right direction is, your people can't keep up. There just isn't enough available to make it go. 用火箭的话说, you've got a very complex 和 now heavy rocket, but you don't have the right kind or enough fuel to actually get off the ground.
So what's the solution? Most business owners think you can just add more people, but adding more people confusingly compounds the problem. The nice thing about rocket fuel is that it's reliable 和 consistent, something us humans really struggle with. The best possible solution lies in the intersection between the systems (the moving parts) 和 the people (the fuel).
If you can leverage the things that each part is good at, 和 make them work in harmony, then you can push your rocket further than anyone else can. With your business, it's no different. 人 really good at stuff that flexes the synapses, 和 really bad at being consistent 和 reliable. 电脑是 really good at being consistent 和 reliable 和 really bad at stuff that flexes the synapses (because they don't have any. AI is a conversation for another time).
So let's test this idea. Let's allow the computer do all the repetitive stuff that just has to be done, 和 have it ask us for input when it can't do something because it requires intelligence. Let's not have levers or buttons for any of it - just let the computer get on with it. How much time would you get back? Most people would save hours if not days per week, because most of us are mired in what we describe as "admin".
If you've saved hours or days per week, what is the compounded impact of that time saving? There is a law of compounding returns, which essentially states that your returns grow bigger exponentially as your investment remains at a constant linear amount. Over time, you're saving much more than the sum of the actual time in front of you.
OK, right at the start I called out the absolute tosh that is the change management paradigm, but I've only really dealt with hypotheticals on merging people with the systems that are in the business. 的人 必须想要 to use them, 和 more than that, they have to be a joy to use. Those factors are critical. Joy in this context comes from two places:
- An intuitive (or easy to use) system stops your brain thinking about how to do something, 和 instead allows you to think about other more interesting things, which makes us happy; 和
- 如果这个系统 solves your specific problem, you derive happiness from it having done something for you, because you were part of creating that system.
Armed with this knowledge, getting people involved 和 engaged is actually relatively straight forward. 和他们一起工作, 理解他们, help them 和 solve their pains, 和 their engagement 和 interest is now compounded on top of itself. Now your rocket can go faster 和 此外, 和 in a more specific direction.
This is all well 和 good, but you want some real numbers, don't you?
Assume you could save 1 hour per day per person in a 5 person team (this is pretty conservative, but let's roll with it). That's 每天5小时, or 25 hours per week, 1300 hours per year!
If you consider that us humans are productive in our work for around 2.每天5小时, then that's 40% of your productive time saved, which means you can deliver 2.5x more work in that same timeframe without adding more people, assuming your systems enabled them properly.
Here's the compounding returns bit though: because those people are more engaged, their productivity will increase. We've seen over doubling, 但是再一次, let's be conservative 和 suggest that you'll get a 50% benefit to your productive time. That moves your needle to delivering 3.75 productive hours per person per day, 所以你整个团队, who were previously working at a rate of 3250 productive hours per year are now at 4875.
现在加上1.25 hours per person per day (the 50%) to the saved hours, making it 2.25, you're actually gaining a 90% improvement in your capability. Why do you add it to the saved hours? Because you didn't have it there before, so it's extra time you've just got back, still without adding any more people. That's the equivalent of achieving 22.5 hours per person per day! Before we started, we were delivering 2.5, 和 we're able to do the equivalent of 22.5 without adding people, 和 by actually reducing the level of stress 整个行业. That's a 9x increase in the volume of business you do every single day.
What are your numbers? These are conservative. But if your systems 和 your people aren't working together, you'll end up with a compounding negative return instead. 这是双向的.
Before I leave you with that thought, let's just look at the salary equivalent of that. 加22.5 hours per person to that 5 person team without a system would require an extra 40 members of staff (2.5 hours of productive time a day remember?)
If you paid each person £30,000 a year (let's assume, 和 let's leave out other overheads like tax, 养老金, 培训, 套件等), that's an additional spend of £1.每年200万美元.
The reason I wanted to leave you with that calculation is because I get asked the following a lot: "How much would it cost to build a system for my business". The truthful answer is that each business differs. But I can categorically tell you that it won't cost you £1.2m per hour-day saved in a 5 person team.
It will be significantly less.
