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| David Cuykendall Click for Index Page |
Why does this happen? Surprisingly often, the task supported is not one that users actually perform.
The model of work underlying the system, despite its careful specification, interferes with other tasks the user needs to perform.
Human factors engineers call this “the automation paradox.”
Conventional financial management systems are sold to enterprises with the promise of improving human-computer interactions while instructing or advising the enterprise on the quality of its financial management, mitigating errors, providing sophisticated displays and reports, and assisting the enterprise with its high financial management task loads.
But this omits the automation paradox.
Do the designers of these systems know what the correct behavior of the financial management process should be for the unique business and operating domains of your actual enterprise?
How could they possibly know?
The tasks that the system has been designed to perform are based upon assumed knowledge of the diverse domains of your enterprise and its integration requirements, not actual knowledge of the divergent real world concerns for controlling and coordinating your enterprise.
The unknown tasks that users actually want and need to perform cannot be simulated. System behavior may not be known for tasks which can be predicted but have not been experienced.
Also, the designers of these systems substitute the step that approaches automation as a task of assigning to man and machine the tasks they are best at — with the result that this step is omitted in the real world environment of actual individuals, their skills, experience, and competence.
It means that users are left with an arbitrary collection of financial management tasks — including an arbitrary collection of computer and software system adjustment, maintenance, and improvement tasks. And in a further irony, quite ordinary, is little thought is given to providing support for these configuration and maintenance tasks.
Further, the designer leaves the users to do the tasks which the designer cannot think of how to automate and important tasks of which the designer is unaware.
Also, designer concerns are almost always related to statutory accounting and reporting, and conventional cost accounting modes of financial management only. Conventional financial management systems tend to create a stationary situation.
Accountants become mired in monitoring the process state of computer systems and financial management software at the expense of critical financial management tasks and practices across the full-fledged requirements of your enterprise's diverse real world financial management task environment.
The consequence is a flattening and deskilling of the job of financial management.
