New Government Computer System Takes 15 Steps To Save A Document
from the brilliant! dept
Ah, the federal government at work. When you install a new computer system, you generally do so to make your office more efficient. Not with the government. It turns out that a new SAP powered computer system at two offices of (of all things) the Federal Technology Service (the GSA's info tech procurement group), has slowed things down to a crawl. They're blaming the training procedure, but it says people were trained... but apparently they were trained without actually seeing the system they were being trained on (no, seriously). The article claims that the GSA was shocked to discover that practice and theory didn't match, and that employees actually needed trainers on hand to help them when they actually had the new system in place. Of course, one reason why they might need training is that the system sounds ridiculously complex. It now takes 15 (count 'em) steps to save a file. Meanwhile, bills go unpaid, orders go unprocessed, and the group insists they're going to muddle through because turning back is not an option and "workarounds" will upset the auditors. Apparently, the $46 million of our tax money spent on the system did not go to any usability testing. Among the other descriptive phrases used in the article: "someone bursts into tears almost hourly," "it is very, very difficult to learn the new system," "unnecessarily complicated," and "not always intuitive." Sounds great.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
sap - revenge of the germans
has there been ANY sap install thats on budget and then resulted in an IMPROVED work flow /efficiency ?
how long before medium size companies get a clue, dump sap, use the open source environment (collective development) to create a sap replacement, save millions, flourish while large companies with conservative management choke on m$, sap & outsourcing f*ckups... ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Work harder ... not smarter
Our office recently added a new piece of software to expedite our record keeping of trouble tickets. The system is not hard to learn but is rife with problems.
Just like the article, it now takes about 4 times as many clicks to record what we used to be able to do with just a few clicks. The " new & improved " system frequently causes our computers to lock up. The program downright sucks & has decreased our overall performance but because some over paid big wig was suckered into buying it, we are forced to deal with it.
I can't wait till quarterly reports come out and the numbers show in black & white that productivity has decreased.
The program in question is called: " The Brain " ... employees have taken to saying: " Use The Brain, not your own ".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Congratulations
If you have a well organized and put SAp to work you'll probably, after spent milions, with a very good (nad costly too)Training program, see the good results(that be achieved with several other small and more flexible software).
If your expectation is to organize the company by the purcasing of SAP.... Bad trip all the ways! :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]