I used to think I was half way competent until I recently tried to order a pen and some laser printer toner using the newly implemented procurement application at my workplace. Boy, was I wrong; it turns out that I must be flat-out, stupid.
I tried, I really did, but upon entry into a maze of links, buttons, and input fields, I was baffled and stunned. So I gathered some of my brightest colleagues, Dan, Ryan, and Phil around to help. Surely, one of these technical programming gurus, who design and write business applications on a daily basis, would be able to solve this procurement riddle, right? Guess again, my friend.
In the end, I went to Wal-mart at lunch to buy a pack of pens out of my own pocket because frankly, my hard earned dollar I spent just wasn't worth the frustration. As for the toner, I just connected to another printer in a different wing and walked through a mile of cubicles anytime I needed to print something.
In search of my dignity, I asked others if they were having the same problems. Here are some of the answers I received.
- There are training classes available. Seriously? Do people really need a training session for a simple shopping type of application? We aren't talking about a never seen before technology here. This is a system where you buy stuff online, kinda like umm….I don't know….maybe Amazon, AOL, Yahoo, or any of the other gazillion sites out there. I don't recall attending training for any of those.
- You should get one of the office admins to do it. OK, so now I have to ask someone else to do something for me that I should be able to do myself in 2 minutes. Plus, this other poor soul is now subject to the same treacherous experience of using the system.
- You don't understand the complexities of an enterprise procurement process. Booyah! That is exactly right, but why I should I have to understand? I probably don't know enough about the entire procurement process including preferred vendors, G/L accounting, good receipts, etc., etc. Maybe if I could order a pen, I would jot down notes as you were enlightening me.
What I found funny was that from all the responses, not a single person told me that I was wrong and that the application was indeed simple and easy to use. Instead, I just got excuses of why it was the way it was. I had one expert tell me that our procurement process wasn't like Amazon where you can simply just go online, pick what you want, and purchase with a credit card. I responded with a simple, "why not?".
Sure, maybe I am naive due to my lack of knowledge of the big, bad, mean ol' enterprise process, but somehow I doubt that Amazon would agree that their business process is so simple. Amazon hides it's complexity from it's users. They make it as simple as possible on the surface, because from a customer's perspective, all you really want to do is buy a book. Do you really care about how Amazon's supply chain works, what standards they use to reduce their TCO, or the backend complexities of their rating and review system? If you had to worry about that stuff, then you would head on over to the local, physical bookstore like in ancient times. 
Incidentally, below is a picture of our printer about a month after the fiasco:
No, you aren't seeing triple, we now have four toner cartridges (three pictured in the box, plus one we already installed). We gave up and thought we had no success, but somehow we ended up with four. How's that for efficiency?
Unfortunately, this is typical of most ERP applications that we force upon our users. The tools we give them are over complicated and they will frustrate them to no end. Change is already challenging enough, so what happens when we force change that actually makes someone's life harder?
I want to start hearing my users tell me that they can't imagine having to go back to doing their job the old way. I want to hear them say that their new tool actually makes life better. I want them to smile at me and give me a high five when they see me in the hallway. It may sound funny, but why are these such impossible expectations? When it comes to simplicity in our enterprise applications, maybe it's time for all of us to be a little more naive and start asking "why not?".
-ewH
[UPDATE: It must be my lucky day, I just received an invitation via email to a 2-hour training session on some new "enhancements" to our online procurement system. I am so excited!]
[UPDATE - 4/27/07: I just received this email newsFLASH about our procurement system: To support the global roll-out of the eBuy on-line procurement tool, a number of technical changes go into effect today… Please take a moment to review the attached document outlining these changes… The attachment? Oh yeah, it was a 17 page PDF document!!! 1) I don't really give a flyin' flip about your global roll-out and 2) There's not a ice cube's chance in Africa that I am going to read through your stupid 17 page whatever the heck it is. Ironically, I received this same email four times within 11 minutes. Maybe I got one email for each toner cartridge that I received. Lucky I didn't order a case of pens or I would have reached my email storage limit.]
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