The value of an ethnographic study in a Digital Transformation
When it comes to Digital Transformations, one theme that’s often touted as a key to success is corporate culture. Which usually translates to “user interviews for workflow analysis.” Which is also equivalent to “requirements analysis” where an analyst looks at workflows and determines requirements. It’s about efficiency and systems. Culture is little understood by UX and UI designers, less by systems architects and analysts. It’s just a cool word that large consulting firms can use as a check box on the path to more billable hours. I’m calling bullshit here.
Today’s CIO is a role less about knowing coding and the details of network infrastructure than it is more about understanding humans and business models and how various technologies can be mixed, matched and integrated. Then comes culture.
In the early stages of many a digital transformation, the vaunted Org Chart is requested. Which becomes the basis point for “culture” and defines reporting structures and workflows. Problem is, org charts are a narrative structure for investors and ideals, not reality. What they are good for is a digital or design anthropologist to determine who to speak with for an ethnographic study.
So what is an ethnographic study? It is a scientific study of cultures. It is when an anthropologist embeds themselves within a society, or in this case a business, to study the culture. For a Digital Transformation, they may also employ an Organisational Network Analysis (ONA). An ONA ignores the org chart and looks at the key people in an organisation who have power, knowledge and influence. Integrate this with an ethnographic stud and you have a very clear view of the challenges and areas of change management that will be needed for a Digital Transformation (which for most businesses is not a transformation, but rather an adaptation) to succeed.
Through an ethnographic study, senior management will learn some incredibly valuable insights into their organisation. Typically, and ethnographic study starts at the bottom and works upward in a process definitively designed NOT to include influences from senior executives. In organizations, culture starts at those employees who are on the frontline, not the executive. Culture is very much influenced by customers and the interactions employees have with customers and the various departments that support the more customer-facing elements of a business such as sales, marketing, technical/product support and customer service. Something few executives are comfortable in admitting.
Done right, an ethnographic study will help identify not just champions of a roll out of new technologies within an organisation, but also the training styles that should be employed, areas of high-risk and impacts to the overall cutlure. It’s a great reason to employ a design or digital anthropologist rather than a UX designer who rarely is trained in ethnographic methodology.
Too often, major consulting firms and businesses miss the mark on culture, even though it is much talked about. And it gets worse when it comes to IT strategies and delivering technology into an organisation. Information Technology does not make decisions, all it does is move information around. Humans create the information (for the most part) and humans make decisions, not technologies. And if you think Artificial Intelligence makes decisions, it does not. AI makes decisions based on how humans programmed it to work.
So the main point is…culture is about humans, not users. Information Technology moves information, it does not make decisions. Humans do.
