The Upgrade Update

If you remember my venting on my Office 07 upgrade, you will remember that I was less than happy with the experience. I will at this point admit that I am becoming more fond of the new program and have instead focused my displeasure with the process for upgrading. After an absolutely wonderful class one day class on 07 this week I've determined that it is another example of why if the people making the rules would just figure out how the people who have to implement the rules work, life would be a whole lot easier.

Case in point - the upgrade when viewed by itself (as was done during the class) is in fact a good thing. There are a lot of new features that are really nice - one of my favorites being that you can live preview what things will look like before you actually change them, a VERY handy improvement. The problem was not the upgrade, the problem was with how the upgrade was handled. I think it's common knowledge that people don't like change. Change is scary. It causes stress. And everyone knows stress is bad. Now this is not to say we don't change, it is to say when you know a change is coming (and specifically when you are the one causing the change in others) you should at the very least acknowledge that people are not going to like it, and if there is anything you can do to assist in the change process do it. For instance, a one day class on the changes between Microsoft 03 and 07. That is a very easy and feasible way to ease the change stress. And if DNR IT had offered this class last year before everyone was changed over people would have been begging to be upgraded. Instead, the upgraded us (sometimes without our foreknowledge) and then months later gave us a class on what has changed. So instead of preparing people for change and then changing, they changed and then prepared people for it. Not very logical.

All IT needed to do was sit down and think about the fact that people have developed very specific ways to deal with their very busy schedules. As the staff numbers dwindle and the workload stays the same, more people are being required to do more work just to get their job done. The only way to do this is to become efficient at what it is you do. And if at any time a wrench is thrown in the gears of that efficiency life if not good. When I (and every other person that was upgraded) lost 2-3 weeks of productivity we had about 10 wrenches thrown in our gears, and the best we got out of it was a meager 'well it's got to be done' response. If the class was offered before we upgraded, there would have been 1 wrench instead of 10 and even though we would still have had a loss in productivity, it would have been far less devastating because we would have at the very least been prepared for it. Oh yeah, along with offering the class beforehand, they should tell you when you are going to be upgraded ahead of time (and not 10 minutes before the upgrade is finished). It seems to be that the thought process behind that is not all that difficult and it's based on an extremely well known fact - people don't like change.

Oh well, at least me and my productivity are back on course. And Office 07 is becoming less scary every day. Now off to a glorious weekend away from Office 07 and all things work!