User Interface Design as a Catalyst for Organisation Change

Abstract

This paper presents a case study that explores the impact of a re-engineering project on a Small to Medium Enterprise in the United Kingdom as a means of delivering improved employee performance. In this paper, the link between the actions undertaken my teams of co-workers and the relationship with the environment provided by IT systems is considered. As an organization evolves over an extended period of time, both the IT systems and also the working practices employed to complete the day to day tasks essential to meet the needs of an organisation's customers, particularly in the service sector, rapidly become unfit for purpose. This soon becomes an issue both in meeting the needs of customers and also in meeting regulatory requirements. The case study considered in this paper reviews the requisite practices adopted by a service provider in the wet stock management industry, and the positive impact that the company realized through the re-engineering of both IT systems and business workflows. The central driver for the changes implemented was a need identified in the business to implement improved visualization of data relating to working practices in the organization and its clients. Through a regular review process, issues were identified in a key area of the business that impacted upon the time taken to complete essential tasks. The underlying reasons for this inefficiency were analysed and, through the Agile software engineering methodology, a solution was designed to resolve these issues.