Clarion School for Boys, Inc., the Milwaukee

¶ … Clarion School for Boys, Inc., the Milwaukee Division. Before looking into some of the issues that are described here and that Controller John Young faces, one needs to look a bit into the importance of information systems at Clarion. Information systems is seen at Clarion as a way to maximize workforce productivity and efficiency. However, improving the information system base required investments in software and hardware, something that the Clarion decision makers were reluctant to do unless these investments were associated to clear resulting revenues.

Nevertheless, a new computer and its software were purchased, in 1998, with the purpose to increase staff efficiency through electronic communications and storage of documents. Subsequently, 60 personal computers were added and several other changes were undertaken, including purchasing laptops and introducing the Internet. A formal evaluation was decided in 2005, to better understand needs and requirements, though questions that were addressed to the staff. This evaluation included both external consultants and interviews with the staff.

The conclusions were very interesting in terms of emphasizing some of the problems that the information system had at Clarion. First of all, there was a psychological lack of acceptance of the system by many on the staff. Even if some had understood the necessities of using the system, they were reluctant to do so. There were many reasons for this, but, primarily, they related to the fact that few were consulted when the initial decision to implement the system was made and, as a consequence, they felt left out of the new technological framework, with little will to adopt it. Another reason is that it is difficult to change the way some things are done: if the bookkeeper is used to keeping the books in a traditional manner, it will be hard to make him switch to a computer-based approach.

This partly led to a training issue. Throughout the case study, there is no reference to a formal training that the staff may have received at any time. Some of the software, like accounting software, is very specialized: the user needs some sort of formal training to be able to use it, otherwise, he or she will just revert to the traditional way of keeping the books. This lack of training is reflected in other areas as well: for example, the dictating software is appreciated, but it requires a secretary that knows how to use it.

One problem that both the external consultants and the interviewed members of staff reported was the fact that the users sometimes overlapped, meaning that some could not reach a computer in time to perform their duties. There are at least two solutions to this problem. One, the simplest one (although not necessarily in the case of Clarion) is to purchase new computers. However, this solution is a costly one and, likely, not one easy to promote at Clarion. The second solution is to create a regulated framework through which everyone is allocated a priority timeframe when they can access the computers, depending on their work needs.

Another useful observation is the fact that some of the users reported that some of the things are better down outside the technological framework. One such example is consulting the information cards for the students at Clarion. Likely, it would be presumed that this could done more efficiently in a database, but one of the people who is being interviewed mentions that the old system is more efficient.

From all this information, there are several conclusions to be drawn and recommendations to be made for Clarion. First of all, the primary problem does not appear to be the fact that the information system is too old or that new computers need to be added. The primary problem is the fact that many of the members of the staff have not been trained to use the different systems for their line of work. So, Clarion should invest in training programs for some of the more applied software programs. Something like this could imply minimal costs, particularly if the training is directed where it is most necessary.