Link vs. Attachment

I was having an interesting discussion last night about status reporting which I believe is germane to BPM.  The discussion centered around executives reading information sent to them via a link compared to attachments or physical distribution of paper.  I think we would all love to see a world without paper, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.  Reading a 50 page white paper on the computer is difficult.

At one company, I observed us go from paper to attachment to link.  The use of the status reporting dropped dramatically.  Initially, first line management all got a paper copy of the status reports every Monday morning.  Everyone would look at them and our boss' assistant would insert a blank page with your name on it if you forgot to update yours.  There was pressure to keep your information current.  After a few years, we moved to send an attachment which I estimated about 50% of people clicked on most weeks.  We then moved to a link which maybe 10% clicked on.  Eventually, 60% of us stopped updating the status reports weekly since no one (including our boss) appeared to be using them.

As you think about BPM, it is important to keep in mind your different audiences and how to share context throughout the process.  Efficiently and lean approaches are critical but certainly not at the expense of effectiveness. 

Management and especially senior management typically have days that consist of 6-8 hours of meetings after which they get back to their desks to see 100+ e-mails; 10+ voicemails; and several urgent items put on their chairs.  Additionally, they have staff management issues to deal with.  Getting your message to the top isn't easy.

At one job, my boss told me that he only listened to voicemails for the first 30 seconds and only looked at what appeared in his e-mail pane in Outlook.  If you couldn't make your point there, it was like you never contacted him.  Harsh...perhaps.  But, he could only digest urgent and pointed issues.  Don't forget this when you think about your process and what the user experiences.