Prisoners Freed After Cops Struggle With New Records Software 128
itwbennett writes Police in Dallas are scrambling after difficulties using a new records management system caused more than 20 jail inmates, including a number of people charged with violent crimes, to be set free. The prisoners were able to get out of jail because police officers struggling to learn the new system didn't file cases on them within three days, as required by law.
Re:Management botched it again (Score:4, Informative)
Still a management problem. At one company where I worked they did it the correct way. First and foremost we added the end users into the whole project. This was asking them what they wanted to improve from the current system. Next we listend to them and saw that we implemented what they needed (not always what they wanted).
We assigned key users (not supervisors or managers) from those endusers.
We then kept them in the team for the whole development running. We knew upfront that some changes would be made. Things that were requested before would be unwanted afterwards.
When the project was aout to be deliverd, we obviously included them in the testing on the floor. We even used those people when explaining it to THEIR cow orkers as ambasadors.
This not only because they would be much better able to explain what the advantages were and how to do things faster because they knew boththe old and the new system. Not only that.
The main reason was that it had become THEIR project. They were selling it to their collegues. It was not some far away CEO or COO deciding to change things for the sake of changing.
If management does not factor in the human aspect, you are doomed to fail. Just saying "I know what is best for you." is not good enough.
We had barely resistance when we launched as everybody already knew what the advantages (and disadvantages) were going to be. Indibviduals who were resiting were told to shut u by their collegues.
As a result we were still on budget, under time with a high customer satisfaction and a great ROI. (for those of you who are manager) and less stress for us.
So everybody won. Truth is that not many managers or management teams dare to do it this way. They rather listen to their supplier (e.g. IT) than their customer (e.g. person on the workfloor)