For every automated technological system that isn't working, there are *also* countless non-automated, by-hand systems working at scale that are *also* failing.
Have been doing a whole bunch of user research and you would not believe* the state of critical infrastructure that isn't automated. Like, worse than "the UK keeps its mobile for infrastructure on Yahoo! Groups".

* I know, some of you would believe it very much
You would not believe* how many of these critical things have been failing but not failing enough to be improved in the "well, we keep getting sued, but it's never important enough to do something about" sense.

* I know, some of you would
Like, it's easy to make jokes about "haha sneakernet still exists, you're walking a floppy disk with an Excel spreadsheet to the other building", but *this still happens* in environments with giant SAP/Oracle/etc systems.
OK, so: as @cydharrell points out, spreadsheets and pencils *actually work* and are used as lowest common denominators. You can trust them. I mean, you can definitely trust a pencil.
It's gonna write down what you write down.
BUT! also as @cydharrell humans aren't perfect reproducing machines! "data re-entry" introduces error!

Pencils are trustworthy but also don't do type checking or field validation which are, you know, useful?
Also, this is an unrelated point but guess how many systems probably have more than 10 different ways of entering a social security number, or the same person's social security number stored in a gazillion different places in different field types.
OR EVEN BETTER, how many have fake/inaccurate SSNs because you only get a partial but "you have to enter something".
So you get automated systems where data quality is horrific *and you also have non-automated systems* where data quality is horrific in different and exciting ways!
What people often find difficult when you talk to them is something like this:

"well I guess we have this new system and it's horrible in these ways and I can't do x, y, z and it has problems a, b, c... *and* it's better than our old paper-based file system"
So then, you're like, "Oh, okay, sounds like you have a spidey sense things should be better than the current manual way they do things because you keep getting sued! So, why isn't there any improvement?"

"It's not important enough."
My friend! You are being sued!
"Make decisions with data" also means prioritizing where to spend time, money, effort etc and sometimes that means being able to step back and look at *everything*.
Anyway, journey maps are great at this, but sometimes just saying "hey, we should journey map this non-IT process for... reasons" doesn't have the exec cover it needs.
Actually the clue there is in how I misspoke. I said "journey map this non-IT process" when really your framing is "journey mapping how people achieve outcomes and meet their needs"
“We should spend money to modernize this legacy technology because it is a risk”

AND ALSO do you know what your other business/service deliver risks are? That legacy modernization may not be the most urgent, in the end! Or the best one to spend time and effort on right now!
Journey maps are also great I think as a distancing tool because everyone can look at them on a wall and say “well fuck me isn’t this dumb” and then have a chance to start working together to figure out how to improve things
Anyway if you have a great example like this, add it to the thread :) https://twitter.com/shanahartmann/status/1311089245017255936
Also an unrelated point in an off-to-the-side DM convo but hey, guess what: computers are great at matching things [citation needed] DOES NOT MEAN computers are great at matching things like *human names* because jesus christ have you seen humans and how they name things
the joke about computer science and naming things should also add:

* "string"processing and matching on how humans name themselves
Also for this, at least 7 of those places where you’ll find SSNs entered are supposed to be for different things. https://twitter.com/hondanhon/status/1311087186188488710
Classic: https://twitter.com/benhammersley/status/1311097486501609472
There’s this, and... (see my next tweet) https://twitter.com/kimgoodwin/status/1311097917344641025
You can follow @hondanhon.
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