• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

DB Kay & Associates - Strategic Consulting for Sustainable Knowledge Programs

  • Home
  • What We Do
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Training & Workshops
    • KCS Workshop – Apr 2023
    • KCS Overview – Apr 2023
    • KCS Coach Workshop – April 2023
    • KCS Workshop – May 2023
  • Who We Are
  • Contact Us

Implementing Technology: Cow Paths Bad; Goat Paths Good

October 10, 2016 by David Kay

cowgoat

Photo Credit © Rachel Alter. Some rights reserved. CC BY-ND 2.0

At Dreamforce last week, conversations turned to good and bad ways of implementing a new CRM system—and really, any enterprise technology that’s helping automate business processes.

There’s an old saying among system integrators: “Don’t pave the cow paths!”  Far too many tool implementations start out trying to replicate an existing tool, and how it supports an existing process…just with a responsive design UI, SaaS packaging, RESTful APIs, and other trappings of modern software.  In other words, people are taking the existing cow paths (processes) and paving them (modernizing the platform.)

This is a terrible idea.  Tactically, software is designed and built to be used a particular way.  If your existing processes differ from the software developers’ assumptions—and they likely do—then the implementation will be going against the grain.  It will be costlier, riskier, more difficult to use, and much harder to upgrade.  I expect many of you are shaking your heads ruefully now, having lived through this.

More strategically, it’s a terrible idea because…2016!  A lot of things have changed since your processes were designed.  Best practices (like KCS℠) have emerged.  Millennials have entered the workplace.  Compliance is out; alignment and empowerment are in.  Social, mobile, and collaborative are new ways of working.  It’s a good time to make sure your processes are really the best they could be.  And once you’ve paved the cow paths, it’s hard to get Bossy to “think different.”

So how do we decide what our new processes should be?  Have a look at where the grass is worn.

Landscape architects use the phrase “Pathways of Desire.”  They know that if you want to know where to put walking paths in a lawn, the best way to do it is to see where people walk naturally, and then turn the most popular routes into the official ones.  When I was talking about this with an Australian colleague at Dreamforce, she lit up and said, “Goat Paths!”  Where the goats naturally go is where you want to help them go.

How does your team work outside of your existing processes?  Do they hate to fill out a complex escalation form, but work effectively inside of a collaboration tool?  Is it pulling teeth to get them to contribute to a knowledge base, but they gladly share information on a wiki?  What is it about what they’re actually doing that is easier and better than what you’re asking them to do, and how can you make it easier for them to follow the paths they’ve developed?

So remember:  Paving cow paths is bad.  Paving goat paths is good.  Now, if we could only herd those darn cats.

 

Filed Under: Technology

Primary Sidebar

Search This Site

Upcoming Events

Apr 4
April 4 @ 8:00 am - April 6 @ 3:00 pm

KCS Practices & Certification Workshop – Apr 2023

Apr 19
8:00 am - 12:00 pm

KCS Overview – Apr 2023

Apr 25
April 25 @ 8:00 am - April 27 @ 1:00 pm

KCS Coach Workshop – April 2023

May 2
May 2 @ 8:00 am - May 4 @ 3:00 pm

KCS Practices & Certification Workshop – May 2023

View Calendar

Subscribe to the Blog

Subscribe to our blog and receive a FREE guide to recognizing good and bad knowledge sharing cultures, as well as eleven ways to improve yours.
* = required field

Categories

AI and ML Announcements Coaching Content Management Culture Customer Experience Intelligent Swarming KCS KDE KM Knowledge Representation Lynchpins Measures Program Management Rants Resources self-service Social Support Strategy Technology Uncategorized Video Voice of the Customer

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Use Strategy to your Advantage
  • Change Management and KCS
  • What Does the KCS Council Do?

Stay Connected

    

Contact Us

talk: 408.568.3551
fax: 408.354.8187
info@dbkay.com
18275 Knuth Road
Los Gatos, California 95033

© Copyright 2023 David Kay & Associates · All Rights Reserved ·