The best part is no part. The best process is no process. It weighs nothing, costs nothing, and can’t go wrong.
Elon Musk, Starship presentation, Sep 28, 2019
The same has been said of software. Marc Benioff’s famous “No Software” campaign ushered in the new age of Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”).
People want to use the software, not own it. Not maintain it. Not hire IT guys, developers, and tech leads to run some Software Development Lifecycle replete with scrum and sprints and kanban boards. Customers want the functions, workflow, and analytics… not the hassle.
[Related: What is the Way of the Calendar?]
Legacy Workflows, such as Time-Tracking, Ported to the Cloud
Yet with all the promise that SaaS holds, we continue to see legacy workflows ported straight over to the cloud. Here’s an example:
I come from the biotechnology/pharmaceutical world—a world that was built in an age of paper. The manufacturing formula is stored as a PDF file, and when it comes time to manufacture a batch someone prints this PDF on special paper, stamps a Lot Number onto it, and hands this stapled paper to manufacturing supervision. At the shift change, operators are given their assignments and walk around the factory floor with a clipboard executing the instructions of the paper.
Attempts over the past decade to streamline the manufacturing of drugs continue to fail for a very simple reason: they port over a paper process onto a screen. Some proudly call it, “Paper-On-Glass.”
Automating a Shitty Manual Process begets an Automated Shitty Process
We too, see this in our world of Productivity Software (-as-a-Service). All over, digital transformation initiatives simply enshrine crappy incumbent processes into crappy workflow software.
Well, what happens when you take the world of timesheets and port them into cloud-based software?
ANSWER: HTML timesheets that render in the browser and people filling out HTML textboxes instead of paper printouts.
What happens when you take time clocks and model them on a webpage?
ANSWER : You get a push-button on a webpage that you forget to stop because you were distracted by the constant interruption of work-from-home or open workspaces.
Time-tracking is an odious task. Service professionals invoice based on time. Hourly workers are paid by time. So yeah, the billable hours have to get tracked somehow.
But we’re two decades into the new millennia. Time-tracking software routinely treads on us, crushing our soul.
[Stop crushing your soul. Crush your Calendar instead. Try CalendarCrush Basic today—always free.]
Shouldn’t there be a workflow software that tracks the time without us having to feed it best with electronic timesheets and electronic time clocks?
We think it is time.
