The Bankwatch

 In the Banks’ I worked at, the one thing that stuck out, and we all complained about was inefficiency and ineffectiveness. 

Microsoft gave us the best and the worst with Office.  Its capabilities for the individual are beyond belief. But that same capability produces an enormous amount of detailed work.  That detailed work is not simply shareable, so everyone creates their own version.  JP sums it up …

People spent incredible amounts of time producing the spreadsheets and presentations. People spent even more incredible amounts of time changing these things, arguing about what was in them, comparing the content with other sources of the same content. People spent time trying to acquire preview copies of spreadsheets and presentations; trying to influence what they contained; trying to differentiate what their particular thing said in comparison to what someone else’s thing said.

Source: Four Pillars: Thinking about sand and broccoli | confused of calcutta

I am increasingly convinced this ‘work’ results in more people than are really required to do the work at hand.