How Technology Creates Benefits And Problems

How Technology Creates Benefits And Problems

Technology can provide many benefits if you believe the specific vendor claims. Stripping off the claims, let’s get down to reality. Here are some of the benefits that have been experienced in projects from using technology and in particular software tools. Note that getting these benefits assumes that you have followed the actions in Fig. 6.5.

• A technology can enforce company rules and policies by encouraging a specific way of doing things.

• Use of a technology across an organization can be self-sustaining, requiring little enforcement for the use of the tool.

• Widespread use of a technology encourages consistency.

• Use of a technology can encourage collaboration and information sharing that would be otherwise difficult or impossible.

• Use of the technology can reduce the cost and effort of performing the activity as compared to what it replaced.

• A technology or tool can reduce the time it takes to make decisions and may support better decisions by providing better quality and more timely information.

A number of problems have already been identified with tools and technology. Here let’s examine the following list:

• A software tool is acquired, but not properly supported so that it languishes and is only used by a few people.

• The software tool is easy to learn at a basic level, but difficult and complex to master in detail.

• While the tool can be used by one person, it is really not suitable for use in a collaborative environment.

• The tool was selected too soon. Now there are better tools available from different vendors. The employees think that they are stuck with a lemon. Remember what happened with companies who stuck with old word processing tools for too long?

• The functions of the tool overlap with those of other tools in use so that redundant effort is needed in data entry and use—reducing the extent of usage of the tool.

To put it all together, Fig. 6.8 provides a score card for your use. We suggest that you apply this to your current software tools.

Figure 6.8: Score Card for Technology and Tools