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Reengineering the Workplace for Technology

Reflection Paper
Eric M. Larson
May 15, 2003

I have tremendously enjoyed this course; my wife can vouch for that, as she is the

one who is forced to witness my emotions surrounding the various classes I take, the

projects required, and the value I perceive from them. So, overall, I want to emphasize

the worth of this course and my belief that it should remain as part of the curriculum.

There is room for improvement (as is the case with anything in life) and I will touch on

some relevant ideas later in this paper.

My life and work have been steeped in technology for years. As an IT manager

who has been employed in technology-based fields my entire life, I cannot escape it. I

will refrain from using reams of paper to describe the changes I have seen as various

technologies come and go, so my reflection on this point will be mercifully brief. My

only over-arching comment is that I have seen technology affect employers and

employees in a variety of ways, many of them unexpected. Those of us who choose to

focus on Human Resource Development must understand that today’s humans cannot

avoid technology and realize that we must either embrace new technologies at the

workplace (whether we like to or not) or watch those technologies overrun us, confusing

us even more profoundly.

Regarding the class structure itself, I found the group discussion setting very

worthwhile. I believe that the fundamental structure of this class – letting the students

read the material and then use class time to discuss and apply it, gaining new insights

from one-another – is an extremely appropriate model to follow with a graduate student

audience. I appreciated the fact that there was little “lecture”; instead, Dr. Parsons served
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as a true “facilitator” of discussion. By no means was he afraid to talk to the class when

he had insights to share, but he respected that we are all adults and could gain deeper

knowledge by conversing with one-another. His guidance of requiring one pre-

determined question from each text provided a framework to keep the group discussion

“on task” without repressing our creativity or ability to dive into topics deeply.

In addition, the application of Blackboard to facilitate these conversations was

excellent. Dr. Parsons provided a good balance between independence and

accountability as he encouraged us to use Blackboard as a tool. I, for one, will admit that

I would have been less diligent about reading and posting on Blackboard had there not

been a “requirement” to fulfill. However, the requirement to respond to a “question of

the week” was not an onerous or unreasonable one; it was sufficient to keep us involved

but left plenty of room for us to be responsible for our own contributions once we were

working within Blackboard.

The content of the required readings themselves was valuable. In terms of

“practical application” to the HRD field, I think the Catalog of Tomorrow may have been

the most appropriate text. One would think that Reengineering the Corporation would,

instead, be more appropriate. But I believe the strongest influences on corporations in the

immediate future are technological innovations that are rapidly appearing in society as a

whole. As broadband Internet access from home becomes more common, how should

HR departments view “work hours” or “leave” or “on call” status or corporate firewalls?

If biometric authentication becomes popular for the general public (when shopping or at

sporting events, for example) how would companies be forced to react in implementing

new security systems of their own because of public pressure? A book like the Catalog
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of Tomorrow helps to raise awareness of up-and-coming trends with which tomorrow’s

HRD professionals may need to be intimately acquainted.

The Pinball Effect satisfied my “intellectual geek” need to consider the historical

and philosophical implications of centuries of inventions. I think it may help to raise that

same awareness I implied above, that different technologies have “trickle-down” effects

that appear in surprising ways. In addition to those of us who like this kind of

information for its own sake, it may serve as an important prompt to others, reminding

them that they must pay attention to new technologies in broader society because they

will feel the effects in their workplace sooner or later.

Regarding Hammer’s Reengineering the Corporation text, I have concerns that

the “Better, Faster, Cheaper” model which was popular during the dot-com boom (the

time during which Hammer’s book was last revised) has been replaced with a model of

“Cheaper, Cheaper, Cheaper.” Put another way, I wonder whether corporations have (or

feel that they have) the discretionary funds necessary to invest in “reengineering” as

Hammer describes it. Right or wrong, is Hammer’s emphasis on “doing it right” now

seen by many companies as a pleasant but unreasonable dream in the face of imminent

bankruptcy?

Perhaps my concerns with Hammer lie in my naïve hope that I will discover a

step-by-step process for improving my management skills and – related to this class – a

process to use technology in a way that dramatically reinvigorates my team. Deep down,

I do not believe that such a “magic bullet” exists, but I still hope. Hammer’s book, to me,

seemed to imply that such a solution could be found, but instead I encountered some

general advice that reengineering is radical, important, and difficult. That, I knew. How
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to truly begin/implement/accomplish a reengineering? That knowledge remains elusive.

I do not want to denigrate Hammer’s work by forcing it to be something it is not; he

provides very valuable insights and interesting discussion. Perhaps I am simply at a point

in my career when I am becoming less philosophical and more pragmatic, searching for

advice that I can immediately apply to my work.

In that vein, I believe that the PowerPoint portion of the class is important but its

percentage of the class work could be reduced. Unfortunately, I am quite sure that some

in our class have been receiving their first preliminary introduction to PowerPoint this

semester, while others (myself included) have worked with PowerPoint for years and

were already familiar with the concepts discussed. I greatly appreciated the freedom to

“play” with PowerPoint for my final assignment; it gave me the opportunity to

experiment with some techniques that, until know, I knew only as theory. However, this

breadth of experience still puts an awful burden on the instructor, who is forced to apply

a uniform grading standard to a tremendously diverse group of students. A quick and

simple solution to this dilemma – and, as an aside, notice that I cannot help but lean

toward an immediately applicable “quick and simple solution” – would be the following:

Split the current 50% PowerPoint requirement into 25% PowerPoint and 25% research

paper or other similar “traditional learning exercise”. (The two could be combined, with

PowerPoint used in a ½-hour in-class presentation of the research; my vision is that the

research and content would be primary and the PowerPoint incidental, the opposite

priority of the present assignment, though students would be expected to develop the

PowerPoint with particular, measurable features as they are now.) Then, perhaps more
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importantly, the curriculum would provide the option for a student to develop a “learning

contract” that provides an alternative project for that 50% of his or her grade.

For example, if given an option for an alternate project, I would have considered a

discussion and demonstration of a product called “Visual Communicator”

(www.seriousmagic.com). This product includes a software version of the same green-

screen technology used by television weather forecasters to superimpose them on top of

computer-generated graphics. Using the Visual Communicator software, one can quickly

develop high-quality news presentations to be distributed on CD, a corporate intranet, or

the Internet. The product actually includes a template for an “HR update”,

acknowledging that there is tremendous potential within this kind of tool for the HRD

field, but provides no information or insight as to what an appropriate use of such a

powerful tool might be. Beyond a simple show-and-tell of the product, and the

construction of a presentation with it, I would have enjoyed some discussion of how it

could be used in the workplace and what creative ideas others in the class might discover,

having been exposed to a new technology. I am sure that there are dozens of similar

technologies “somewhere, out there” that could be introduced to other students through a

class such as Reengineering the Workplace for Technology.

In conclusion, perhaps we should change the name of the class to “Reengineering

the Workplace with Technology”? That captures the overall feeling I have toward how

the class itself might be “reengineered”. Rather than viewing the workplace as a separate

entity that needs to cope with external technology and be reengineered on technology’s

behalf (“for technology”), we should use existing and emerging technologies to

reinvigorate our existing work environment. This change in the workplace will
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inevitably happen regardless of our involvement in it, but I believe HRD professionals

have a unique opportunity to capitalize on these technologies rather than passively accept

them.