|
|
|
Troubleshooter 4
To the Travel Sector Account Manager, Mr Jones, You will be pleased to see that I am at last working on a PC. It is missing the modem at the moment, but otherwise is just as I specified it, something of a triumph for my innovations, as previously it was unusual for a PC to bear any resemblance to the user requirement. No further progress on acquisition, but I expect a new technical approval structure in time for my next report. Steve Loss, our self-proclaimed web expert, presented his prototype site to a small group including myself and the Network Manager, Brian Finlay. Steve’s design was ... unusual. It’s amazing what you can do using only an HTML editor off a magazine cover disk. It wasn’t so much the rainbow background to the pages, or the way that each paragraph was in a different type size and colour. It wasn’t the half megabyte images on the home page. The real show-stopper was the way that the text appeared to be written in Albanian. Steve assured me that this was not the case. It seems that the IT Security group consider it unwise to publish information on the web in a way that just anyone can read it. They have encrypted the text, but are issuing decoding books to appropriate users. We asked Steve to go away and calm down the appearance of the pages, and I was elected to discuss the nature of the web with IT Security, who don’t seem to have entirely grasped the concept. I was rather amused to discover a notice on their door saying “IT Security: this door is always locked”. At first I thought they hadn’t grasped the idea of talking to people either, but it turned out that I was supposed to go in through the adjoining office. The secretary was very helpful, but the Security staff were all out on a virus hunt, so I had to put this particular issue on hold. To help get a feel for the quality of staff communications I sat in on a briefing about BritBreak’s expansion plans. What I saw was not highly encouraging. Arnold Potter, the DP manager, made the presentation. He was clearly uncomfortable talking to the staff - in fact his body language was quite remarkable. At one point he grasped his buttocks with both hands. General consensus among the staff I interviewed afterwards was that he was thinking “Yes! I can find it, despite what they say”. At another point, he talked about the need to shift focus from administrative to customer contact staffing. He asked the meeting for their “commitment and trust” and seemed quite annoyed at the general laughter that ensued. If the meeting had been intended to reduce motivation and spread unease it was highly successful. If not, I think I will have to recommend a self-presentation course for all senior IT management. ... read next column Copyright © Creativity
Unleashed Limited 2006 |
The Troubleshooter column relates the experiences of a fictional consultant. Although the context is made up, many of the experiences related in Troubleshooter have happened in real UK businesses. Take a break from the creative pressures with Troubleshooter and return to your creativity refreshed. Originally published in PC Week magazine.
Check out more articles on our creativity information page
|
