Mr. Perfect and his Manager - by Sanju Dabi

Computerization is now a way of life and further to it the enhancements or major improvements are also frequent, i.e. end users can expect that system that they are working on to be obsolete within few years and get a new system that is supposed to be better and more efficient for the business. A new system is always welcomed by end users, it’s nice to see people happy and elated on the day it gets commissioned, however happiness may not last long. Although the new system is supposed to be better, the main issue for end users or operators is getting familiar to this system. Operators do find it difficult to do some activities in new systems that were simpler to do in the old system. This can be because the graphic screens have changed or sequences in which they need to enter data or instructions may have changed.

It’s quite easy to hear a remark from operators that 'the new system is causing so much trouble to us'. I am used to hearing this over last 10 years since I started to work for implementation of systems. Remarkably I see that the attitude in this matter shown by the end users across industries, locations and countries is similar.

And who is Mr. Perfect then? Certainly he is not the one who has all knowledge about the new system (because nobody can have it). I happened to go to a bank in my town with my father since I needed to get a draft prepared for US Embassy. Well and this looks to be a time when a new system was introduced in this bank. Earlier it used to take few hours to get draft ready or even I had to go next day to collect it. Well now times have changed and I got this draft from bank within 45 minutes with help from Mr. Perfect who made the new system work for us.

How? This was interesting to observer. I had given form for draft to a gentleman at counter with all my details and I got a response that it will be ready within 10-12 minutes. He was really a cool person with nice smile and looks to be quite friendly with his colleagues and then I see him getting off his seat and calling his Manager a couple of times for help. It appeared that something funny was going on. After 15 minutes I inquired if my draft was ready and I got a response 'well we have a new system here and it’s messed up and I am fixing it', that’s interesting!

Then he calls his Manager again, who looks to be a bit tensed (obliviously since he has responsibility to manage large amount of work in the bank and also people to manage) and gives some instructions to this guy. Then this guy looks happy and does some more stuff and that gave us impression that draft will be ready soon. In between someone came to him with another request and he turned it down with a smile saying 'oh well not right now, I have to make a draft for US Embassy'. Certainly he was fully devoted for my request (feels good to get such an attention).

Now again I go and inquire if it was ready and answer was 'no, there are still some problems' and then I am standing close to his counter desk. He once again calls his Manager and this time you cant expect that his Manager would look happy, so Mr. Manger sits next to him and starts to instruct him as 'now enter code here', 'click on the next button', 'click on approval page' and so on till complete activity is done and draft is ready to be printed. And I here from him that my draft is ready and is being printed. Finally I got it and it was fast compared to time it used to take couple of years back.

Finally I see Mr. Manager commenting to this gentleman that 'Why do you have to ask me the same things so many times? You have been trained for this new system' and he gets reply 'I know that Sir! But I need to be sure of what I am doing that it is exactly correct in this new system!'

So who is Mr. Perfect?

"Mr. Prefect is the one who can make any new system work for his customers and has a thorough way to insure that all is correct by calling his Manager every few minutes!"