Small example of a bad process

It's been a while since the latest post - I got a nice(?) idea and I've been developing that during the evenings. Let's see if the idea is strong enough to survive...

First some quick notes:

• I got my Accredited Symbian Developer status renewed. It's nice to see that I was still able to pass the test although I really haven't been involved with development tasks lately
• I was re-elected as Forum Nokia Champion for third consecutive year
• I'll participate in Forum Nokia's events at Budapest between 17-20 November. If you will be there, it would be nice to have a face-to-face chat. Drop me an email in case you'll be there.

Sometimes mobilizing the business process would not be a good idea. That came to my mind when a while ago decided to order a couple of new TV-channels from my cable-TV operator. I logged in to their nice web-based self service portal, made the order and thought that was it. Days went by and nothing happened. Then finally I called to the service desk and asked what's wrong; they told me there is some queue at the back office and my order is not yet entered to the system. Luckily the support lady was helpful and she took my order, activated manually new settings to my subscription and sent a ticket to the back office to cancel my initial order - she also advised me to call next time directly to the support desk . Later somebody at the back office hopefully processed the cancel ticket...

Just think how bad the process was from the operator's point of view, by using the self service portal I actually created more work for their staff than if I just had called them at the first place. In these circumstances it would be good idea to shut down the self-service portal - adding new channels like mobile would be plain stupid (assuming that process doesn't work better for other customers).

This is a simple example how adding mobility to the business process is not automatically a good thing. If the process is broken, don't boost it - fix it.

//Harri