We are all so accustomed to the smartphone notification centre that we believe if only every piece of data we needed for work or pleasure was delivered to us via a familiar 'ping' and in the palm of our hands then we'd never miss a thing. This seems on the surface to be an ideal situation, but can soon get out of hand and dilute the very intention of so called important notifications.
I am often requested to create alerts, notifications, and other push messages from enterprise systems designed to alert colleagues about the goings on inside the business. For many reasons (outlined below) I strongly recommend the "Access over Distribution" (or Pull v Push) model, where event professionals are encouraged to self serve and obtain the data they need at the time they need it.
Access v Distribution
So what does access and distribution mean in this context? In short, it means by far, having people log into their systems and accessing information for themselves provides greater value and less cost than having that same information distributed to them by a colleague or a system generated alert.
When you promote a culture of distribution, it sends the message that someone will always tell you what you need to know or do, and excuses such as "No one told me" become legitimised. The people responsible for performing the data entry also become responsible for telling everyone about the data they just entered. Often this is required in different formats for different recipients at different times. The recipient is actually looking for information, not data - the burden becomes very big, very soon.
By distributing information, you are invariably taking data out of the system, thus rendering it potentially obsolete and introducing version control issues. Once out of the system, there are little to no controls on the data or its context, and most of the time there is action or follow-up required, meaning the recipient is back into the application anyway.
Another key issue with the distribution model includes the 'crying wolf' situation where users become immune to the constant barrage of alerts and updates to a point where the alert no longer serves its purpose. This can be due to the unconsidered volume of alerts, the inconvenient timing of such alerts or the fact that some users never wanted to receive them in the first place.
But opting for an access approach does not just mean telling your colleagues to fend for themselves. As with any workflow, we must set people up for success. We need to understand what information they need, when they need it and in what format is easiest for them to digest and work with. Creating dashboards and curated views of this data is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to deliver the information they need.
Once we have the content and format available, we make the end user responsible for periodically and pro-actively looking into the system to check for new or updated data that they are expected to act upon. This then becomes part of their standard workflow and everyone can expect and be confident that the data they enter will be acted upon accordingly, after all, we're not afraid of someone not opening their email application on a daily or hourly basis so why are we worried someone might not look into the very system that stores all their operational source data?
Exceptions
As with any rule worth following, there are times when the rule should be bent or broken. Often higher management, or infrequent users are not always logged into the ERP and do in fact need to be alerted when there's data for them. But this almost always constitutes a very small part of the user base and is certainly no reason to avoid enforcing the distribution model.
Other times that exceptions to this are not only acceptable, but should be part of the standard workflow is when there are abnormal or time critical alerts that need to be actioned sooner than the regular timeline would expect, or if confirmation of receipt of the instruction is warranted.
Conclusion
In summary, by separating the activities of data entry and data consumption into their respective timelines and empowering users to self-serve, makes for a far more efficient and effective sharing and distribution of information. By minimising or eliminating noisy notifications, users are free to focus their efforts on the tasks they choose to at the time that best suits them. I encourage everyone to put down the push notification and All Staff emails and empower your users today!
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