First
of all, I must say that I am not an expert on communication theory
and I know that it is a very deep field of study that
may take one’s years to accumulate enough knowledge. On the other
hand, I intend to share my observations on how our corporate
communication styles have been changing since “COVID-19
triggered the digitalization” of the enterprises, schools,
governments etc.
To me, we are just carrying our communication rituals to digital
environments. This is the spirit of nowadays. Technology is given and
available, infrastructure is ready for years but mindsets are
anchored to the 1980s. Therefore, we are only simulating something
very old and hardwired in our daily lives in teleconferencing media.
To make things more concrete, it is enough to have a look at the
basic observables of meetings around. Those were the days that we were
meeting in a room with 7 people, now we are still meeting with 7
people in the digital rooms. The nature of the information exchange
and hierarchy based communication forms are the same, as well. In the so called non-digital times, meetings were usually planned as one
hour sessions, today we still follow that rule. Office assistants are
still exist and interestingly still planning the managers’ meeting
schedules. And they usually plan the famous one hour sessions by
putting one after another without adding any moments to take a fresh
breath between sessions. It is a perfect way to die digitally. I call it
digitally archaic.
So what has changed?
Frankly speaking, I exaggerated a bit because we are not meeting
with 7 people any more. We meet 77 people in the one hour “digital”
sessions. Almost always, the breakdown of 77 is like 7 aces and 70 more
listeners. When that proliferation of meeting attendees occurs, the
communications in the meetings become a monologue or minimized
dialog. In a usual picture, the moderator who is the organizer of the
session transfers information to the most senior manager in the
session. Manager listens, gives necessary directives to the moderator
or to the 7 aces in the session. Others listen in a “muted”
fashion. When you compare the number of the distinct communications
and the variety of the communication directions between attendees of the meetings
that were planned traditionally with 7 people in the old days and the 77 attendees
meetings of nowadays, I'm sure you’d see no significant difference. But, what is
the role of additional 70 people? Some says, it is very good not to
be limited by the physical conditions of meeting rooms so that any
one can join my session and get my messages directly and it reduces
the risk of information loss during message dissemination.
It seems correct. However, it is not that easy. To test it, call 10
of your colleagues and explain them a complicated situation directly
in the same room. Then, check their notes taken. You will see the
differences between the notes. It is expected because every person puts
her interpretation into the notes taken, their vocabularies are different,
level of personal know-hows are different etc. Without asked
questions, given answers and active dialogues it is not possible
to assure high quality information exchange during the meetings. I
can say that additional muted 70 only fosters the one way
communication that kills effective knowledge transfer. The bottom
line is digital meetings are becoming large conferences where the
wiser person speaks and the others passively listen. In other words,
monologue which is not that revolutionary.
In contrary, I am expecting real model changes in every aspect of
corporate communications. As I said at the beginning, I am far
from building a future communication model for the enterprises but I
can ask a few questions:
Why don’t only 2 persons meet every time they need information
exchange?
Why cannot those sessions last less or more than magical one hour?
Why corporate communication picture cannot be the set of those necessary
2 people meetings?
Why don’t we stop calling those sessions as “meetings” and
give them a new name?
“I have a dialogue with Jane at 9 am.”
“Let’s arrange a dialogue after lunch.”
Why don’t we stop PowerPointing?
Why can’t we build our own schedule?
Why can’t we run multiple micro sessions at the same time?
Why don’t we stop taking screenshots of crowded Zoom meetings to
share them in LinkedIn?
herhalde
o zaman geldiğinde
kim olsa yabancılık çeker
çocuklar
kitaplar
müzikler
dolapta katlanmış düzenler
bildik, küçük yemekler
evim, yuvam, köşem dediğin yerler
devam etsin istersin
bildik, küçük hisler
kim bilir
o zaman geldiğinde
can kuşu nereye gider...
I have been thinking of composing my ideas on robotic
process automation for a while. My initial gut feeling was like
“there is something wrong about it”. However, to be more serious,
I've read about it, examined the current market and tools, learnt
typical use cases and challenges so that I postponed the blog post
until this day. And today, I am still saying that “something is
wrong”.
I am living on enterprise software development and
information systems automation for about 20 years. I have seen
mainframe systems, client server systems, three tiered systems, n
tiered systems, distributed ones, comet servers, cloud based systems,
re-invention of virtualization and I am still experiencing new models
of computation and automation.
Treat a macro as it is a macro
In my interpretation, RPA approach is a type of
macro. We are familiar with macros since assembly programming
language was dominating the realm of software development. Macros are
good for improving a person's repetitive task performance and not
good for enterprise automation.
People have been using macros for decades, solving
their information processing problems in a, so called, IT independent
way. Remember the times you faced big macro embedded spreadsheets,
actively in use in a department, where you are conducting systems
analysis for better automation. You must read the macro codes,
extract the logic and after perfecting it, design the enterprise
automation in a more manageable and accountable way. We were calling
that hidden macro code silos as shadow IT. Our mission was
illuminating the shadow.
Nowadays, people are calling those department based
macro codes “robots”. Moreover, they are saying that they
optimize and automate processes by using those robots. The only
difference is, they don't want you to code your macros in spreadsheet
applications but by using some RPA tools.
It is wrong. It is still the macro. And it must be in
personal self-service use in departments no matter the department is
in IT organization or not. You must not try to automate your
enterprise wide processes by using macros. Full stop.
Record 'n Play
We are living in 21st
century in the middle of information boost, hyper connectivity,
remote cars on the surface of Mars but we call a record and play
based fancy software a robot. Asimov must be aching in his grave.
Please have a look at the video below.
Those were the days we call macros as macros, not robots. Today, many
RPA tools are still recording and playing. Very interesting, right?
Process engineering and automation
RPA approach proposing that if you have some rule
based repetitive tasks handled by human beings in your processes, you
can create a macro code for eliminating human task force in the
operations given. So that you can reduce the operational expenses in
a very fast way. Trivial jobs to be done by macro codes, faster than
a human, more accurate than a human, cheaper than human manXhours.
Sounds good. Some limitations of contemporary RPA projects are (a) no
critical communications can be handled, (b) no critical decisions can
be made, (c) no rules, no actions. That means, no intelligence.
Although, some AI algorithms are being tried to be
embedded in RPA macro codes, companies cannot take the risk of
millions of wrong messages sent to customers or delegation of
critical decision making to algorithms because of possible legal
consequences. So there is still time for achieving so called
cognitive RPA. That means, no intelligence again.
When it comes to process automation. It's becoming
more interesting. Imagine your are reviewing a company process and
you found out that a team of people is checking a screen, controlling
the values in some text boxes considering some rules and approve or
reject based on those rules. And at the end of the shift, they are
sending e-mails for reporting number of approved and rejected records
to their bosses. It sound like this operation can be fully automated
because structured digital data is used to execute some deterministic
rules and finally number of processed records are reported to a
parametrically known authority.
Healthy steps of automation can be listed as follows
Investigate the software system carrying data to
operators and find data sources that are displayed to operators
Check data flows, assure data validation steps,
define exceptions
Define the rules of approval and rejection to
run on identified data sources
Develop a software module for processing
approval and rejection rules with no human interaction.
Develop a software module for consolidating and
counting processed records in bullet 4 and sending automated e-mails
to defined recipients for reporting
Test the modules
Launch the modules
Discard the approval screens in the systems
Discard the human operations in the process
Document the jobs done
Of course, you need system analysts, programmers and
testers to make this automation happen. The meta process regulating
those actions is called SDLC, owned by CIOs. It is business as usual
in IT world. By following this methodology, you are guaranteeing
portability, performance, maintainability, usability and the
functionality of the software systems used for process automation.
What RPA suggests for the same situation is GUI to
GUI operator mimicking through macro coding and calling this a sort
of process automation. This is a fast but weak way of integration.
Because, software systems have different layers of data, business
logic execution, data exchange, service integration and presentation
(graphical user interface). If, in this scenario, you do not make the
necessary changes in the proper layers of the software systems, you
end up with non maintainable systems. Systems are not designed to be
integrated through their graphical user interfaces. If you do this by
recording and playing some GUI steps, it is in decent words, sub
optimal. From software engineering perspective, I would call it ugly.
Forget any ugliness but just think of the regression effect: GUIs
will be changing in time and your macros will be obsolete. Since no
software provider is considering their GUIs as system to system
integration points, they will not be warning you regarding system
integration complications after GUI upgrade they released. As a
result, your so called automated process will be broken. Actually, if
it is rule based, it will be broken; if you used cognitive RPA by
including adaptive algorithms, you will never understand what's
happening. And who will be the responsible?
Silos against central IT
RPA tool providers are using the argument of IT independent
process automation. If the aim is non maintainable system to system
glue application, it is OK. It is OK for a very short term indeed.
Imagine you have non IT RPA departments using RPA tools to glue
systems. After 5 years, there will be piles of RPA macro codes that
are not managed by IT but by RPA departments who are trying to synchronize
their macros with enterprise software modules managed by IT. Those
enterprise systems will be more likely developed in continuous
delivery/continuous integration fashion. Therefore, massive software
change will be inevitable. What will happen to RPA macro codes? What
will happen to so called automated systems? Who will be the
responsible party to keep things together? Are RPA departments going to be a
part of IT organization? Then, is it still be an IT independent
thing?
So what?
In short, RPA is a macro. Use it as a macro. Embed it into
operating systems or make it a personal solution tool for empowering
professionals who are to formulate their repetitive operations and
save time. Actually, hundreds of thousand are using macros today: It
is a part of programming languages, code editors and IDEs,
spreadsheets, operating systems, BPM tools, software testing tools
etc. It has been a commodity for years. The idea is just not to make
it a sort of enterprise IT solution. Keep it as a self service
feature.
Or maybe I am old fashioned.
No robots detected.
beş kardeş doluşurlar bayram ziyareti komşu köye sıska at yavaş çeker dört tekerli boyalı bir tekne
traktörün römorku kamyonetin kasası steyşın toros'un bagajı altta serili battaniye kara gözler hızlı mersedes'te şeritler birer birer geçer direklerin sayısı bin üç yüz elli beş eder saçını sert yalar rüzgar her tümsekte yüreği yola düşer camdaki buğudur nefesler rengi azalmış çocuksu hayaller
şafaktan evvel teker döner reo'ya biner on yedi er sımsıkı kavranmış tüfekler aklı at arabasına gider
üç kahpe kurşun yakar ah demeden yere düşer
bir ucu baba omzunda köylüler dört kollu tekneyi çeker nişanlısı inceden inler
