LANCASTER UNI VERSITY Computing Department
Combining Methodologies for Core Process Re-design Dave Randall, John A Hughes, Mark Rouncefield, Antonia Gill and Raul Espejo Cooperative Systems Engineering Group Technical Report Ref: CSEG/21/1997 http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/97_rep.html
Presented at NDiSD ‘97, ‘Workflow Management - Go with the Flow?’ - New Directions in Systems Development Seminar Series, Wolverhampton, March 1997. ABSTRACT This paper explores the value of employing two different research methodologies, ethnomethodologically informed ethnography and management cybernetics, in the re-design of the lending process in a ‘High Street’ bank. These approaches may be seen as complementary in providing different and valuable ‘viewpoints’ on organisations 'at work’, but more importantly viewpoints which respectively emphasise the way in which 'processes' are fundamentally rooted in working practice and in the need to understand complexity in 'process'. It is argued that through a combination of what might be crudely characterised as ‘top-down’ (Cybernetic) and ‘bottom-up’ (Ethnographic) methodologies a basis for a more ‘grounded’ view of the organization is developed which may prove useful for process improvement.
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Combining Methodologies For Core Process Re-design Dave Randall1, John. A. Hughes2, Mark Rouncefield, Antonia Gill3 and Raul Espejo3. (1Manchester Metropolitan University, 2Sociology Dept, Lancaster University, 3SYNCHO Ltd)
Introduction: This paper explores the value of employing two different research methodologies, ethnomethodologically informed ethnography and management cybernetics, in the redesign of the lending process in a ‘High Street’ bank1. These approaches may be seen as complementary in providing different and valuable ‘viewpoints’ on organisations 'at work’, but more importantly viewpoints which respectively emphasise the way in which 'processes' are fundamentally rooted in working practice and in the need to understand complexity in 'process'. It is argued that through a combination of what might be crudely characterised as ‘top-down’ (Cybernetic) and ‘bottom-up’ (Ethnographic) methodologies a basis for a more ‘grounded’ view of the organization is developed which may prove useful for process improvement. The complementarity of ethnography and managerial cybernetics Ethnography with its emphasis on the ‘real world, real time’ character of work, has risen to some prominence in the interdisciplinary field termed Computer Supported Cooperative Work (Hughes et al, 1993; 1994). This research arena shares with BPR an interest both in the centrality of Information Technology to issues of organisational change and a focus on the reasons for 'failure' to deliver improvements in effectiveness and efficiency when change is delivered exclusively through technological innovation. (see Davenport, 1994) The central characteristic of ethnographic enquiry is the researcher’s detailed observation of the circumstances, practices and activities that constitute the ‘real world, local’ character of work; seeking to uncover features of the sociality of work and its organisation; in brief, how the work actually ‘gets done’. As befits it's origins in ethnomethodology, this particular 'take' on understanding work emphasises how work is socially organised - how individuals are enabled to work because of their awareness of what constitutes their 'task' and how it links with the tasks of others. This focus on the ‘situated’ character of work and the related judgements and discretions routinely displayed in response to everyday contingencies, such that the accomplishment of work involves a range of tacit skills and local knowledge that becomes visible only when routines breakdown, can then be understood in this context as orienting to BPR's interest in 'work arounds'. It provides a method for identifying the subtle, unremarked, cooperative aspects of work, such as the small-scale constellations of assistance and deployment of local knowledge that enable work to be accomplished. Ethnographic methods involve, therefore, far more than ‘mere’ detailed description but bring a particular focus to the analysis of systems in use and thereby outline the ‘play of possibilities’ (Anderson 1994) for work and design; “to enable designers to question the taken-forgranted assumptions embedded in the conventional problem-solution design framework” (Anderson 1994:170). It is in these senses that ethnography can perhaps be understood as a 1
Acknowledgement: This work was funded as part of the ‘Sycomt’ Project (Systems development and Cooperative Work: Methods and Techniques) part of the DTI/EPSRC CSCW Initiative. Our thanks are due to our partners in the project.
'bottom up' method for re-specifying and developing a more sophisticated view of, the gloss of the 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' process. In contrast, the emphasis of managerial cybernetics is on the study of communication and control processes as systemic properties of organisations. It is in this tradition that the Viable System Model (VSM) has been developed (Beer, 1979, 1981, 1985). This model offers insights into the underlying structure of organisations based on the notion of complexity management. Complexity, rather than finance, is seen as the key control variable, given the increasingly complex and information-rich environments in which most modern organisations operate. One of the most significant attributes of the VSM is its recursive nature: autonomous units are nested within wider autonomous units in a cascading structure. Each unit at each level of recursion requires the ability to self-organise and self-regulate if the structure as a whole is to be effective in managing its complexity. This notion is in sharp contrast with traditional hierarchical organisation structures based on a decomposition of work tasks into increasingly small, discrete fragments, with system closure taking place only at the apex of the structure. The cybernetic approach, by contrast, seeks to recognise a series of nested ‘whole systems’ with devolved decision-making capacity and cohesion derived from the organisation’s identity and strategic intent. The notion of the ‘unfolding of complexity’, refers to the cascading structure of recursive levels within the organisation where self-organization and self-regulation is required for the effective management of complexity. VSM offers a method, through in depth interviewing of a structured sample of the actors concerned for building an overall picture of these interrelationships.The analytic purchase of cybernetic analysis resides, therefore, in the insight it offers into the underlying structure of the organization and whether the existing or proposed organization either does or does not have the processes, information and resources to enable it to function in a viable manner. Albeit in a radically different manner, then, managerial cybernetics also serves to respecify the business 'process', in this case by stressing the organisation as a social system dependent on communication and control requirements. Taken together, these methodologies suggest both a way in which in the first instance 'process' can be understood in terms of members orientation to procedural aspects of organisational life rather, giving if you like a 'nuanced' view of the relationship between the organisational need for standardisation and members' actual practices, and secondly an analytic focus on process which sees the definition and maintenance of organisational process specifically in terms of problems of communication and control. Arguably then, these approaches address BPR's interest in "... how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus's emphasis on what." (Davenport, 1994), and specifically provide a way of viewing notions of 'error', 'duplication elimination' and 'poor quality cost'. (Harrington,1991) The Lending Process. The practical utility of combining these two methodologies is illustrated in research conducted as part of the SYCOMT Project.This is an ongoing, in depth, study of the organization, structure and work processes of a ‘High Street’ bank, - in order to provide a framework for recommending improvements to the design and organization of work. Ethnographic views of 'how work is done', with the sociality of work, are concerned with issues such as the skills and competencies deployed at work, the egological principle and
the working division of labour, and local knowledge. There is no room in a paper of this kind to fully explicate these concepts, suffice it to say that ethnographic approaches seem especially valuable in developing subtle understandings of the ‘skills’ that contribute to the practical accomplishment of work as a ‘routine, everyday’ activity.2 One feature of how these 'skills' are deployed is that of the ‘egological’ principle of organisation, the way in which the tasks performed by an individual are an interdependent part of a larger sequence of tasks done by others. As Anderson et al (1989) note: "From the point of view of an actor in a division of labour, working through the endless stream, getting things done, means doing-what-I-do and passing tasks on to others so they can do what they do." (1989: 161) What this notion draws attention to is the fact that, from the individual worker’s point of view, the practical accomplishment of the work requires learning and knowing how to use, the information, artefacts, files, etc., relevant to her work, as well as knowing those which are not. These ‘horizons of relevance’, in which events, persons, information, incidents, knowledge, and so on, move in and out of relevance depending upon the eventualities of work are structured in and through accumulations of knowledge and expertise which are sometimes constituted as 'invisible', 'local', or 'tacit' knowledges which in part explain one workers comment that; “I just do things .....I don’t think about it” It is precisely this ability to ‘just do things’, assisted by an awareness that ‘these are the things that I do’ that enable the work . ‘Local knowledge’ in other words incorporates ideas about methods for short-cutting or facilitating tiresome and time-consuming routines comprising what Bittner (1965) calls ‘gambits of compliance’; techniques that enable workers to ‘get the work done’ whilst appearing to comply with formal rules. By way of example, the fieldwork suggested that lending decisions, though computer supported, required a range of ‘skills’ including an appreciation of ‘paperwork’ and the affordances of paper; the use of computers to support relationship building and decision making; and the deployment of local knowledge and local ‘logics’ in guiding and supporting notions of ‘rationality’ and rational decision-making. Most important, however, for our purposes here this complex amalgam included an appreciation of the balance between application and ‘nuanced’ non-application of ‘the rules’. As Suchman (1986) has observed, work ‘routines’ are not slavishly adhered to but involve the considerable exercise of judgement and discretion which ‘typically’ concerns the circumstances under which a routine is to be strictly followed and the circumstances under which modifications may be employed.3 Such analytic orientations informed our early interest in the lending process in branches of the bank and are illustrated in the following fieldwork extract where a Business Manager is 2
Whilst seeking to avoid entering into the debate on 'skill' what we are trying to suggest is that value of developing the kind of subtle notions of skill that may well prove essential if ‘skills’are to be incorporated into system design. While work obviously can be analysed in terms of ‘skill requirements’ such an approach tends to ignore the interweaving of skills in work; the variety of approaches and skills used for task completion as well as the context in which skills are exercised. It is, perhaps, for this reason that the creation of both a ‘selling’ and a ‘service’ culture within banking has proved difficult; turning, “tellers into sellers” or ‘putting customers first’ requires rather more than executive mission statements, ‘visions’ or slogans - it requires an organisational context in which such skills become relevant to the work. Another, approach to skill is informed by debates on skill as a form of knowledge; knowledge which is often partly informal, tacit and the product of the acquisition of the culture in which a particular work activity is accomplished (Collins 1987). Again this points to the subtle but essential competencies involved in making sense of, and being able to make it available to others, what is ‘going on’; competencies required for ‘mutual intelligibility’ on the part of the members of a work team. 3 The absence of this sense of egological organisation produced, perhaps, by system re-design or the use of temporary workers, is an increase in the rate of error, delay and complaint.
considering lending to a doctors’ practice which is ‘in trouble’ and under Regional sanction. 1. Asked for an additional £XXXX for computer..... Outside DP (discretionary power) (since under Regional Sanction) Agreed - business is entirely satisfactory - - not reasonable to tell them to wait for such a paltry sum; “I’ve worked in Regional Lending for 6 years and I know how it works....you’ve got to put into context my background, the amount of the loan...” 2. Looking at report to Region - checking for spellings etc - report phrased to support decisions
These lending ‘skills’ were ‘seamlessly’ woven into the everyday flow of work and, as said previously, only became noticeable when departures from the ‘routine’ occurred, as in the example below where a Business Manager is covering for a colleague’s absence and is using the customer’s folder to develop an understanding of the particular circumstances and construct a rationale for his decisions; 1. Looking at file ...“Umm...suddenly got a message to look at one of ..... accounts.......he wanted an excess on his OD ..and to discuss other matters..he’s in a bit of a mess. ..so I have to very quickly look and try and sort of acquaint myself with whats going on and whats been arranged in a short space of time ...basically, he’s heavily borrowed... and clearly he’s having difficulty in servicing it all . and clearly he’s not generating the income to deal with that...umm, C...has had a couple of discussions with him (looking at file) at least a couple, probably a few..he’s under pressure with the Inland Revenue.. so it was agreed that we would increase our limit. There are also other negotiations going on ..to deal with this huge amount of borrowing...., that aspect I didn’t discuss in detail but thats the sort of , you know, thinking about an account like this..this was just a Mickey Mouse small request..that was a bit more meaty, so he’s going to have a bit more of a think about it and will return.....I’ve agreed this...what he was intimating first of all ...could he issue his whole cheque ..well the answer’s ‘no’ because I dont know where our repayment is gonna come from”...
With the assistance of the paper record and aided by the knowledge that the account is ‘under report’ the Business Manager is able both to make a quick decision and to offer a reasonable justification for his actions - namely, that since it is ‘under report’ the account is not to be allowed to ‘drift up’ over its maximum borrowing allowance. The existence and utilisation of ‘local knowledge’, as evidenced in these extracts, is hardly a novel discovery but its importance needs to be recognised, particularly with regard to attempts to redesign the work process, given that the creation of specialised processing units was associated with a move towards the standardisation of operations. After all, from a business process point of view it would matter a great deal whether the deployment of local rationales is functional to the effective conduct of the business or not. Moreover, as these specialised units are developed, based on a more 'rule driven' approach, there would be an evident need to see what, if any, difference it makes to decision- making. It was thus natural for us to look at Lending Centre practices as well. Our observations in the Bank and elsewhere have consistently identified the extent to which the accomplishment of work tasks is associated with informal teamwork, or ‘constellations of assistance’, which sometimes depend on the ‘local knowledge’ we refer to. This again takes on a particular importance in that the Bank had a particular interest in team performance. Thus, our observations in a Lending Centre served to show how close teamwork and team discussions involved resulted in a commonly accepted ‘view of the world’ and facilitated the rapid exchange of information about particular cases or correct procedure in a Lending Centre; Assistant Manager ..”keep your eye on XX .. the uncleareds are at an unacceptable level..” Assistant Manager “Whats happening with YYY??” “Bounce bounce bounce bounce” “He’s sent a fax”
Amongst the usual office banter, which in itself plays some part in the development of ‘teamwork’; advice and training is dispensed in an informal fashion. In this extract the Assistant Manager has been overviewing a printout documenting the actions of the small business team. As he comes across specific accounts he talks across the table to the Lending Officer involved: Assistant Manager (AM): .. I think you may have been a bit harsh on FF, , check out the Business Account Lending Officer (XX): me being harsh, I cant imagine that...I dont think there’s much on the BusinessAccount. AM:. e ..he’s only gone £50 over on the other thats all.its a little bit (harsh).. I dont know whether you’ve written to him..before XX: I think we’ve returned before AM: ..oh we will have returned before..whether at the £50 level.. ... AM: ..its more the old man that’s .. XX oh right AM: .. its a bad sign XX: .. I was generous AM: ...its 3 months since we’ve written to him.. do an LC letter (letter of concern)
In this next example the Lending Officer (ZZ) is preparing an interview brief for the branch concerning a takeaway restaurant. The Lending Officer discusses the brief with the Assistant Manager, a discussion which soon involves other members of the team as they consider issues of insurance and security. ZZ talking to Assistant Manager..”do you think this comment is fair enough?..(reading from brief) .. on the issues for the proposition... ‘whilst we note comments on last report that business may be seasonal previous owners of the business did not make a success of the business, account at IDRD, and conduct of the account since opened gives great deal of cause for concern..” AM “yeah.. certainly not give .. the OD” ZZ: “ I’ve put that on there..I think they’re going to have to consolidate it but on strict credit working and full security” AM: “ concerned at the lack of turnover through the account... I dont think you’ve got a cat in hells chance of turning it around..” ZZ: “ I dont”
later.. ZZ ..I think..it ought to be consolidated on a secured BDL.. AM: get a charge on the lease.. even if its of minimal value.. it will save him flogging it on and disappearing.... just put lease question mark.. tie him into the business if nothing else... question terms of lease.. we’ve lost money on that business once I’ve no intention of losing it again.. ZZ: I think we’ve already lost it quite honestly AM: well, no more then shall we say..
The vignettes, anecdotes, and extracts from our ethnography of lending work, then, provided a flavour of actual decision making processes and their relationship to rules and procedures in both branches and regional Lending Centres. The 'thick' description that resulted served to orient the concurrent cybernetic analysis by offering an initial picture of 'what it is like' to work in a lending team and thus, 'what kinds of problem might be relevant'. The issues of 'local knowledge' and 'teamwork' we have briefly outlined above certainly seemed to be two salient issues. The cybernetic analysis, in the meantime, was able to hone these observations along with its own focussed and in-depth interview data into an early problem specification: the need to improve the design and operation of a ‘virtual team’ involved in carrying out Lending. Descriptive models were constructed to illuminate areas where the ‘theory in use’ differs from the organization’s espoused theory (as articulated by working manuals and procedural guidelines), focussing progressively on the evaluation of lending proposals.
The in-depth, focussed interviewing employed by managerial cybernetics revealed the extent to which the process of evaluating personal loan proposals is driven by a computerised credit scoring system, to which both Lending Centre and Customer service Branch (CSB) lending officers have access although their use of the output is interestingly different. All Lending Officers will abide by a ‘reject’ decision even if they personally do not agree with it. However, in some instances, the computer will return a verdict of ‘caution’. This is usually taken by the branch staff as a ‘yes’ and the loan is hastily sanctioned in order to gain the sales points. In the Lending Centre, however, a ‘caution’ will result in the officer looking further into the account and perhaps deciding ultimately to reject the loan request. Consequently it might almost be concluded that whether a personal customer is successful or unsuccessful in applying for a loan depends on whether they happen to telephone the bank or make their request in writing. In the former case, the request will be handled by the Lending Centre and in the latter by the branch, which will tend to look rather more leniently on a border-line case. This identification of two ‘cultures of lending’, which clearly transgressed organisational notions of standardisation and consistency, was also apparent in the ethnographic fieldwork. Observations of differences in the treatment of lending between the branches and the Lending Centre suggested that decision-making, despite the range of sophisticated computer support, often came down to ‘gut feeling’ or as one Lending Officer put it; “in the end do you trust him to pay the money back?..” or another “for a one man band like that you either lend him a couple of grand because you trust him .. they’re (Risk Grades) fairly meaningless..”. Lending on ‘gut feeling’ clearly benefits from the kind of detailed ‘local’ knowledge of the customer commonly found in the branches; “.. we know him quite well..its not a bad account but we’ve been bouncing on him like nobody’s business..the Lending Centre.. they take the view that they’re a control situation ..one letter then they bounce. As a branch we take a more practical view - tend to be a little more sympathetic..of that (£ZZ)excess...... he’s only about £100 over his limit.. he’s brought it on himself really..he should’ve phoned. The Lending centre..(are) much more rule driven..”and perhaps explains some of the differences in lending practise between the Lending Centre and the Branch. It would, however, be unfair to suggest that this ‘empathetic difference’ is a hard and fast one between the sites. What was clear, however, was that Lending Officers in the Lending Centre were much less free and much less likely to take a more idiosyncratic view of lending proposals. While it was generally felt that the branches shared in the general outlook of the Lending Centre, it was also believed that the branches’ greater personal knowledge of their customers could, quite paradoxically, result in ‘bad’ lending decisions. In general, however, it was believed that the Lending Centre view was generally shared by most branch managers, as noted in this extract where the Lending Officer is completing an interview brief; ..”he’s losing money hand over fist basically..we want repayment proposals..we want the customer to indicate how he’s going to pay the debt off..the brief cannot dictate to the branch.. but with this one you can be sure they wont be doing anything..we can give a very strong indication of what they should be doing.. most of the Assistant Managers.. are of a like mind as us anyway”
Identification and Diagnosis of Problem Areas The iterative relationship between ethnographic research and cybernetic analysis led to the identification a number of ‘problem areas’ that needed to be addressed by the prototype
lending system; those of geographical and organisational dispersal; ‘functional baronies'; the sales incentive scheme and communications. The organizational units providing retail lending services are geographically dispersed and, managed by separate parts of the organization, appear to be very loosely interconnected. Consequently, a culture of ‘passing the buck’ has emerged, with poor communications leading to the lack of a consistent, customer-centred approach to the lending process and impacting on teamworking across the organisational divide. Co-location creates and encourages particular, often very fierce, group loyalties and the development of a ‘them and us’ attitude, (where ‘them’ is any other organisational unit) in which ‘they don’t understand the pressure/procedures we’re working under’ becomes a common refrain. Another effect of geographical separation - requiring the use of couriers to take lending briefs, interview notepads and customer files, first from the Lending Centre to the Service Centre and then from the Service Centre to the Branches - is that occasionally the Bank is not always able to respond quickly or effectively or in a particularly informed fashion to urgent customer requests. Dispersal also has an impact on the effectiveness of attempts to computerise manual systems. The ‘over-ride’ rate on the ‘accounts out of order’ printout, for example, once performed manually but now computerised, seems unlikely to meet its target of 2-3% because of communication problems and time-lags between the specialised centres and the branches. The current sales incentive scheme apportions a lending sales target to both branches and Lending Centre with credits being awarded to the unit which sanctions the loan. This puts the two units in direct competition with one another to score more sales points and achieve target at the expense of the other. Instead of focusing on those elements of the lending process where they can each add most value and co-operating to achieve the best result for the customer and the Bank, they are being forced into a zero sum game of points-scoring, losing both efficiencies and customer values in the process. The way in which the incentive scheme impacted on organisational working and purpose is documented in the fieldnotes through accounts of a relentless scrambling for sales points; a scramble in which the original purpose for the system, of improved customer service and performance, was submerged and points accumulation had become an end in itself, occasionally to the detriment of effective working. As functional heads, the Area Manager, Lending Centre Manager and Service Centre Manager each oversees a part of the Lending process. No single individual or team has the overview or ownership of the process as a whole, to ensure that activities do not overlap and the messages received by all those involved in the process are congruent. Nor were we able to detect any evidence of regular meetings and discussions among these individuals, ie teamwork, to establish common goals, principles and priorities. Teamwork and communications are strong within certain functional areas (eg the CSBs and Lending Centre) but there is a notable lack of teamworking across the functional divides. The focus of the units tends to be internal, leading to a strong ‘Us and Them’ culture. One of the major problems facing any highly distributed organisation with a complex division of labour is that of ‘communication’; ensuring that work proceeds smoothly from one phase of activity to the next, is passed on in a timely and coherent fashion, that plans and procedures with their associated paperwork and records are understood and adhered to and so on. To some considerable extent ‘issues of communication’ were the focus for much of the ethnographic work and are also clearly implicated in the previous concerns of geographical and organisational dipersal; the ‘incentive scheme’ and ‘functional baronies’. However implementing improved communications raises a number of other issues connected to ‘standardisation’ and software development.
At a simple level, but within a large organisation, communication is facilitated if standard procedures are adopted as to the completion of, for example, interview notes, with guidelines as to what decisions and explanations need to be included. At present this seems dependent on individual whim or preference. Similarly, communications might be improved considerably if some of the current manual tasks, the completion of the interview notepad and interview appraisal form and associated paperwork, for example, could be performed electronically. At present, Lending Officers are spending considerable lengths of time completing forms manually, often simply transferring the same information from one form to another. Reducing the time involved in this routine task might promote and facilitate other kinds of interactions, and routine communications, that are important in the development of ‘teamwork’. At an admittedly more complex level, as the Bank seeks to increase the use of new technology in decisionmaking and administration, at some stage it will need to address the communication issues that currently exist between its major accounting and database software. So, again for example, although the ‘accounts out of order’ printout effectively makes decisions about appropriate action, part of the process of implementing that decision, getting the current balance from the accounting software, discovering the ‘customer salutation’ from the database and entering these into the computer generated letters, remains a, fairly tedious, manual process, and one which appears of little value in terms of either work training, the development of skills or the monitoring of accounts. Prototyping the Lending Process Using this research three possible’ scenarios’ of the CSBs, Business Centre and Lending Centre in the new organization structure were identified as the basis for a prototyping study - which is currently in progress. The emphasis throughout this prototyping activity has been on how an organisation can ‘realistically’ reorganise itself whilst necessarily continuing to function and how changes can be implemented ‘in situ’ - within an established organisational context - and in the light of ongoing research. One option was to view the CSBs as autonomous primary activities, using the resources of the Lending Centre and Service Centre as support. The CSBs would have increased ownership of aspects of the lending process; would be held accountable for generating all lending sales leadsand their performance would be measured in terms of sales value and risk assessment. The Lending Centre’s would be to provide a support service to the branches, in particular in the area of risk management and helping them to optimise their customer contact time and minimise the time spent on ‘backroom’ analysis and processing. Its performance would be assessed primarily in terms of the speed, quality and effectiveness of that service, as perceived by its ‘customers’, the CSBs. The second view was of the Lending Centre, PAEs and Business Managers as the primary units, with the CSBs providing them with amplification resource. In this scenario, mass market lending is viewed primarily as a routine, computer-driven process in which face-toface contact is minimised. The CSBs provide the venue for the occasional interviews and act as information-gatherers on behalf of the Lending Centre. The generation and sanctioning of loan agreements belongs essentially to the Lending Centre, with the CSBs supporting its efforts by providing a ‘human face’ for the customer and capturing the kind of information that is difficult to obtain by a phone call alone. The performance of the CSBs would be assessed by the quality and timeliness of information provided for the Lending Centre.
The third possibility was that both the Lending Centre and CSBs are primary for some elements of lending, and in a support role for others. The Lending Centre is primary for lending control but the responsibility for sales and marketing and for the sanctioning of borrowings is shared between the CSBs and Lending Centre. This third view potentially combines the benefits of processing scale with a service-oriented customer interface; however, it implies the need for a much closer working relationship between these entities than if their roles and responsibilities were more clearly distinguishable. Having identified three possible organization structures to support retail lending our concern has been to make clear the requirement for a viable organization design that is consistent with the chosen view of the roles of the various entities involved in lending. The options presented may well correlate with a progression of ideas over time: the first option, of CSBs as primary activities, may well have resonance with a more traditional way of thinking about the role of the branches. The second option, involving the Lending Centre as a primary activity, is a more radical view which may well point to a future scenario in which branches are organised as distribution channels or points of access into the marketplace, but the real decisions and expertise regarding lending, the sale of financial products and transaction management happen elsewhere, in the centres of excellence. The third option, or ‘mixed model’, may well be the most culturally feasible option for the near future, although in view of its inherent role ambiguities it is not an easy design to communicate and implement. All these prototypes require the creation of a ‘multi-functional area team’ comprising the Area Manager, Lending Centre Manager and Service Centre Manager - to overcome some of the issues associated with ‘functional baronies’ and poor communications and agree mutually acceptable objectives, benchmarks, milestones and performance measures; the design of a ‘virtual team’ comprising members of the Lending Centre and CSB lending officers; and the implementation of improved communications to explore the kinds of information, and its presentation, required for mutual benefit and support. Conclusion: Ethnography, Management Cybernetics and Business Process Re-design. Regardless of the hype that has surrounded the concept of BPR, the reality will be, as always, that the success or failure of any design work will depend to some extent on the quality and nature of the analysis done. Design work must of course orient to problems of efficiency, effectiveness and adaptability, but understanding how 'processes' may be made efficient and effective may require a nuanced view of various factors, including working practice, communication and control problems, 'worldview' and indeed any number of complex articulations of structure, process, technology, and 'situated' knowledge. That is, BPR or indeed any other candidate method for transforming the organisation will depend for its success not only on finding the right answers but upon deciding the right questions to be asked in the first place. This is implicitly recognised by Davenport, when he argues, "The term process innovation encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions." (Davenport, 1994) That complexity, we suspect, is not always recognised by BPR practitioners who may sometimes be guilty of precipitately accepting a particular 'problem- solution design framework' as Anderson puts it, at the expense of measured analysis of the kind of problem involved. In other words, the presupposition that analysing current work as ‘process’ can unproblematically lead to the identification of 'problems' and that measurable benefits - the elimination of duplication, error proofing, automation, and standardization -
will be obtained precisely from their identification, elides the very complexity of the interrelationships Davenport refers to. Our case, in effect, is that the descriptive and analytic techniques to be found in ethnographic studies and in managerial cybernetics provide alternative ways of asking questions, or ways of 'respecifying the problem'. (Hughes et al, 1992). The analytic interest of the ethnographers in the project lay, as we have seen, in conceptualising 'doing work' as egologically organised and so on, and as such examines aspects of organizational life which may not otherwise be adequately dealt with by BPR analysis, including the persistent and necessary local knowledges and skills we have spoken of, and which enable members to orient to processes in the first place. Further, and given BPR's emphasis on new technologies as a vehicle for providing organisational gains, it is as well to remember that the fieldwork observations further suggest that in a number of instances the deployment of local knowledge and instigation of informal teamworking, such as asking for codes to enter screens, how to complete routines; etc, was effectively constituted as 'ways to cope' with the inadequacies of the computer systems; that is, and to adapt a phrase of Garfinkel’s (1967), there are ‘bad organisational reasons for good organisational practices”. What local knowledge and skill is, and how it is deployed is hardly likely to be incidental to the concerns of process redesign. Even accepting that it is a sensible task to reduce discretion down to a lowest common denominator, it is likely to prove useful to know how it is constituted and how it relates to existing processes, technologies, and more.4 In much the same way, managerial cybernetics brings to process re-design an emphasis on understanding organisational structure that may seem unfashionable but is nonetheless useful. Whatever the merits of the horizontal process-led perspective, the minimalism of some BPR experiments has arguably resulted in the importance of communication and control structures being underestimated. What cybernetics can contribute to BPR is to address the issue of organisation structure in a new light - one that is entirely consistent with a process perspective. Understanding the organisation as a complex recursive system requires a paradigm shift away from traditional hierarchical ways of thinking about control in organisations. An alternative view of structure is presented that provides a coherent framework for managing and supporting key organisational processes in a nonhierarchical, self-organising way. In both instances, whether we are referring to the ethnographer's interest in 'work' or the managerial cybernetics interest in communication and control, the issue is very much one of finding practical methods for understanding complex inter-relationships as they impact on change management. What we offer is not an all- embracing and well- defined methodology for expanding the problem space, because our own very different analytic interests have involved us in a mutual and on-going learning experience. Rather, the experience we have shared, that of making sense of perspectives other than our own, has served to sensitise us to the rich possibilities inherent in complementarity of perspective, and to the need for imaginative and flexible approaches to problem definition before the headlong rush to problem solution. The complementarity of ethnography and cybernetics, we believe, and despite our very different theoretical traditions, has enabled us to reach a greater depth and richness of understanding of the 'processes' we have investigated. Our different perspectives, research methods and resulting data have led us sometimes to validate, often to challenge each others' perceptions and conclusions. The ethnographic 4
Other research in the financial services sector (Randall and Hughes, 1994; King and Randall, 1994) has illustrated, for example, that it is that in and through the demands, enquiries, requests, and so on that customers bring to encounters that the ordering of the process, the structure of database interrogation, work priority, and the spatial organisation of work in hand is determined.
interest in the 'local' has served to provide data which provided an early orientation for the cybernetic analyst; the explicit concern of the latter for issues of communication and control has served to progressively focus the ethnographic enquiry. Using cybernetics and ethnography in combination, in sum, has been an exercise in developing mutual understanding of alternative perspectives. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is the very need for sensitivity to complementary viewpoints that has led us to resist too early a definition of 'problem' and 'solution', and thereby enabled us to target research efforts more effectively, reach a more nuanced diagnosis of current work processes, propose changes that are both systemically desirable and feasible given local operating conditions, and monitor and assess the effects of those changes over time.
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King, Val, and Randall, Dave, (1994), Trying to keep the customer satisfied, Proceedings of the 5th IFIP Conference on Women, Work, and Computerisation, July 2-5th, Manchester, England. Maturana H.(1975) The Organization of the Living: A Theory of the Living Organization. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, Vol 7 pp 313-332. Maturana H and F. Varela. (1992) The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding.: Shambhala. Boston. Pycock, J., Calvey, D., Sharrock, W., King, V., and Hughes, J., "Present in the plan: Process models and ethnography, Comic Document MAN-1-7 Randall, D. and Hughes, J. A. (1994) “Sociology, CSCW and Working with Customers”, in Thomas, P (ed) Social and Interaction Dimensions of System Design. Cambridge University Press Cambridge. Randall, D., Hughes, J. A., and Shapiro, D. (1992) “Using Ethnography to Inform Systems Design”. Journal of Intelligent Systems, Vol. 4, Nos 1-2. Suchman, L., (1987) Plans and Situated Action: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Biographical Details: Dave Randall, Senior Lecturer, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University. John A Hughes, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University. Mark Rouncefield, Research Assistant, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. Antonia Gill is a consultant in Cybernetics who works closely with SYNCHO. Raul Espejo, Professor of Information Management, University of Humberside, Hull, and Managing Director of SYNCHO Ltd, Birmingham.
