ArtsProfessional welcomes Kieran Cooper of Catalyst Arts to host an occasional column exploring the challenges of Information and Communication Technology. This week, how to decide when to upgrade and whether to invest.
?Just press a button and it all happens?
To say that technology has changed our lives beyond all recognition would be understatement of the century. But it is in the workplace that we seem to have the most struggles with it, and especially within the arts sector where organisations have always (quite rightly) found more deserving areas to spend their hard-won income. Companies frequently find themselves lagging behind, without the technology they need to manage the work they have to do efficiently. After much wrangling they finally find enough money to buy new ticketing software or upgrade the telephone system, for example, but then don?t have the energy or resources to review the IT position again for a number of years, during which time the systems have been superseded or come to the end of their life.
At the opposite extreme are those people who believe that an IT system is never actually ?finished? and that they need to buy the latest new bit of software or hardware to make some tiny little bit of the system work better. Certainly these additions can actually make a difference to the day-to-day users, but it?s hard to avoid the feeling that these ?techies? are more intent on searching for what?s cool rather than what?s useful.
So how can a balance be struck between these two extremes: to make continuous improvement, but only where necessary, and avoid having to face impossibly large bills to replace old systems in one go? It will come as no surprise to anyone experienced in business planning that IT requires the same sort of strategic approach.
Firstly, an organisation needs to know exactly what it has. This audit should cover computer hardware, operating systems (such as Windows) and software, as well as telephone systems and standalone items such as fax machines and photo copiers. In larger organisations it may well be that simply going through the process of talking to staff about the technology they use will reveal whether they are empowered or frustrated by it (or, more likely, a mixture of the two!).
Secondly, a risk analysis is essential. It is likely to be less of a problem to the organisation if the spare computer in the corner goes down for a day or two than if the ticketing system server blows up without there being a working backup of the data? In this analysis of risk, the role of individual people in the wider systems need to be considered too. Is there someone who has set the system up but is terrible at explaining to other people exactly what they?ve done? Is there someone who everyone relies on to answer questions about the word processor but who might just decide to take their experience somewhere else for more money? It is likely that none of the risks faced by an organisation are impossible to mitigate against with a combination of policies and investment, but it is difficult to assess how to prevent something happening if you didn?t know it was a risk in the first place.
Once that stage is over, changes may have to be made - whether that means buying new computers, upgrading software or getting more training. Some issues of software integration are almost certain to have come out of the audit - opportunities to increase efficiency by linking together two or more processes which are currently done separately. For example, an organisation which runs an Intranet (an internal web-based information tool) might decide that it would be better to incorporate the weekly box office report that normally gets circulated on paper onto a web page in such a way that it would be automatically updated every day. People need to be included in this evaluation too. It may be a great idea to automate a process by using some new software but what happens if the member of staff whose job includes that task is not really computer literate and is much happier doing things by hand?
The overall guiding principle must be that IT is only there as a means to an end, and not as an end in itself. If the case for introducing or changing an IT system cannot be made solely on business grounds, and there are ways of getting round the problem with small adjustments to the process which make it fit the existing technology better, then don?t spend the money and energy now - especially as you may need it for a more deserving project just around the corner!
Kieran Cooper is a Director of the arts management consultancy Catalyst Arts
t: 01225 340340; e: kieran@catalystarts.com w: http://www.catalystarts.com