Saturday 19 November 2011

Organisational silos impede user experience - Microsoft in 2003

A fascinating article which discusses an email sent by Bill Gates to senior Microsoft staff about the poor state of the user experience in 2003.

The email outlines the experience of downloading and installing a particular piece of software from the Microsoft website. Bill has an awful time but essentially, his departments all point the finger at each other.

The bottom line is that no one was taking responsibility for the user experience. Each department was working to its own priorities which (it seems) were conflicting with each other so while individually they probably were doing well, as a whole they were failing.

Silo mentality. Sound familiar?

It's a fascinating read. I recommend it. If you work in a large, devolved organisation as I do you will probably recognise elements of the story.

How Organizational Silos created an User Experience Deadlock at Microsoft by Bernhard Schindlholzer for cxacademy.org

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