Problem Identified

Suppose an organization has many web pages, which are currently created and maintained by various members of staff, on an ad hoc basis. Some of these web pages were well prepared, but there were few which were badly made.

Solution Sought

The organization wants to improve its web pages. It has decided to appoint a full-time staff to handle the job. In order to appoint a competent person for the job, the organization is willing to pay generous salary. Since the person is appointed at a higher salary, it would make sense to grant him/her the title of “Web Manager”, which should make the post look more attractive to potential applicants.

Unity of Command Implemented

Managers are expected to have authorities. In no time, the new manager is ready to exercise his/her authority. The first thing that he/she does is to stop everyone creating and maintaining any pages. This proposal easily gets the approval of top management, after the Web Manager points them to the badly prepared pages (which only accounts for 0.1% of all the web pages of the organization). The Web manager also points out numerous situations under which poor practices in web design could compromise the organization’s network security or damage the company’s image. It is true that none of these practices exist within the organization at the moment, but no one can deny that these are potential threats.

Cumbersome But Necessary Procedures

The computer system is therefore changed to ensure that no one but the Web Manager can create or change the web pages in the organization. Anyone who wants to create a web page or modify one – even if it is a simple correction of typos – will have to ask the Web Manager to do so. With the best intention, the Web Manager won’t know which job is more urgent than which. To ensure fairness, he/she insists that all requests to create or change web pages must allow a lead time of 10 working days. Besides, in order to ensure that the person who makes the request genuinely has the authority to create of modify the page in question, all requests must be approved by Department Heads. These are all sensible policies, which easily gets the support of top management.

Procedures Lead to Stress Among Users

Some members of staff, who are now referred to as clients, are not happy with the lead time. In the past, they could put new ideas onto the web. Now they need signature by their Heads, before they wait for up to another 10 working days. Some clients are also frustrated by the procedure: even a small typographical change on one web page takes several email communications with the Department Heads and with the Web Manager. They need to provide detailed explanation on how the web pages should be changed; in the past they could have made the changes themselves in a fraction of the time. It is always difficult to understand others’ specifications. Sometimes the web pages are not done to the clients’ satisfaction. These changes have to be redone, after clarifications by the clients and defences over liabilities by the Web Manager.

Procedures Lead to Frustration by the Manager

The Web Manager is also very stressed for all the reasons mentioned above: communications, redoing jobs, complaints handling, etc. Some clients do not have much knowledge of web design. Some of them have requested the Web Manager to do things which are time-consuming. The clients are not at fault, because they don’t have expertise about web design. In the past, they would have done something much simpler (but no less effective), which they could have done themselves by copying other pages. To cope with the pressure, the Manager requests the top management to establish a new Web Management Team with added manpower. After inspecting the time-sheet provided by the Web Manager, which clearly indicates that he/she is over-loaded, the top management reluctantly concludes that the Manager’s request is justified. A Web Management Team is thus established. To run properly, the Web Management Team has to produce plans, budgets, reports, performance statistics, and guidelines for clients. As procedures elaborate, the Web Management Team grows rapidly.

What Have Been Changed?

The organization has changed quite a bit in its web management: in the past it had a set of inconsistent web pages, with a few badly prepared ones, but web pages could be efficiently updated. Now it has a Web Management Team of several people. There is long delay in web pages creation and maintenance. There is confrontation between the Web Management Team and its clients.

Lessons Learnt

Everybody has acted in good faith. The outcome is natural, but not necessary good for the organization or everybody involved. This outcome can only be avoided by management with vision, someone who does more than incremental changes.

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