#Gaps in the Mechanism | The Idea of 'Hiring' Digital Systems
Systems join the team as 'virtual people'
When the momentum for DX (Digital Transformation) grows within a company, the first topic of discussion is often the selection of tools: 'What system should we introduce?' or 'Which SaaS looks convenient?' However, as a business designer, I view this phenomenon from a slightly different angle.
People have strengths and weaknesses—in other words, human characteristics. Companies, too, have characteristics (a corporate personality) cultivated over a long period. So, what about systems? Here, I choose to treat systems not as mere convenient tools or stationery, but as 'virtual people' (digital employees) to be welcomed into the team.
A virtual person is an entity that works like a human but possesses characteristics fundamentally different from those of a human. They can repeat tasks according to set rules accurately, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without a single complaint. On the other hand, they are fatally bad at reading the 'atmosphere' of a situation, grasping context, or making nuanced judgments in gray areas.
Understanding these cold, objective characteristics correctly and assigning them work where they are best suited is key. By adopting the perspective of 'hiring' new members into the team rather than just introducing systems as IT tools, the landscape of DX changes significantly from mere efficiency to organizational restructuring.
The maze of choosing between packages or full customization
When welcoming virtual people into the team, we are always faced with the maze of choosing between 'packages' (off-the-shelf products like SaaS) or 'full customization' (in-house scratch development).
From the perspective of business design, this can be seen not as a matter of functional superiority, but as a difference in the 'personality' of the virtual person being hired.
A package-type virtual person has, so to speak, an 'extroverted' foundation. They tend to incorporate widely open knowledge, such as external standard processes and industry best practices. Furthermore, they can flexibly learn and grow from the outside through updates, even with advanced technologies like generative AI that would be difficult for a company to master on its own.
On the other hand, a fully customized virtual person is built specifically for the company's operations, so their personality tends to be 'introverted.' While they are not good at flexibly incorporating new external knowledge, they excel at faithfully reproducing the complex internal rules and the internal experience and know-how cultivated over many years. However, because their evolution is limited to internal knowledge, there is a risk that they will stick to old ways if the organization itself stops updating.
Regardless of which personality of virtual person you hire, there is one most important prerequisite. It is that unless the 'boundaries of the work to be entrusted to them' are clearly designed, no matter how excellent the virtual person is, they will not be able to function well within the organization.
Interviewing virtual people and designing the work to be entrusted
The essence of DX is not the 'procurement of means'—that is, what IT tools to buy. It lies in the reorganization of the organization: what kind of personality of virtual person to interview and hire, and how to design 'what to entrust to them and what not to.'
Whether you choose an extroverted type that flexibly incorporates external knowledge, or an introverted type that thoroughly adheres to your company's know-how, by clearly defining the areas to be entrusted according to their personality and characteristics, the 'way of working for the remaining humans' will naturally come into view.
The perspective of us business designers is very simple. We firmly entrust the rule-based, repetitive areas that should be left to virtual people entirely to them. For example, the aggregation of monthly expense data and the automatic generation of forms with fixed formats are their specialty. Then, using the time and effort saved by that systemization, we have people focus on 'work that only humans can do.' Discussing 'which business to invest in next month' by looking at aggregated data, or empathizing with the emotions of customers who have fallen into the system's exception handling and deciding on special responses, are things that should never be entrusted to virtual people.
Designing the reallocation of value between people and systems in this way is the core of DX. By clearly separating the boundaries between the parts to be entrusted and the parts that humans should judge, it becomes possible to maximize the value of the team as a whole without humans or virtual people becoming exhausted by unnecessary friction.
It is human observation that fills the gaps
Virtual people operate with terrifying accuracy according to the rules given to them. However, as mentioned above, they are not good at judging context or fluctuations in the situation. In reality, it is impossible for an introduced system to run perfectly in the field from the first day.
The 'discrepancy' between the system and reality that inevitably arises, or the 'gap' that is born between virtual people and humans—it is, after all, human power that can identify this and make fine adjustments during daily operations.
A business designer stands between the cold virtual person and the emotional human, acting as a translator and coordinator to bridge that gap. By finding small discomforts raised from the field or changes in the business environment, updating rules, and making appropriate adjustments, the mechanism can finally begin to breathe within the organization and continue to live.
That is precisely why we need a 'philosophy' that goes beyond simply creating (or introducing) convenient mechanisms; we must design how to put them to work and what kind of relationship to build with them. While envisioning a world where virtual entities and humans complement each other in their respective areas of expertise to create new value together, I face the work of DX design every day.
In your organization, who are the virtual entities 'replacing,' and how are they working? Are they being left alone as mere convenient tools?
Prescription: For those who want to peer deeper into the 'gaps'
For those who want to go beyond the introduction of functions and tools and touch upon the structure and philosophy of coexistence between systems and people, here are some articles that serve as auxiliary lines for your thinking.
・For managers who want to rethink system implementation not as 'functions' but as 'organizational structure': Why do partial optimization (convenience for the front line) and overall optimization (organizational logic) clash? This explains the structural friction you will inevitably face when delegating work to virtual entities. #Designing Questions | The Friction Between Partial and Overall Optimization
・For promoters who stand between systems and the front line and feel the frustration of not being understood: How do you connect the cold language of digital systems with the passionate language of the front line? This is the philosophy of the position as a 'translator' who fills the gaps. #Business Designer Theory | Translators Weave the Language of Mechanisms
・For planners who are torn between adapting the front line to the system or sticking to their company's own methods: How do you dress your organization in the one-size-fits-all clothing of standardization (packages)? This is a design theory on how to make compromises and draw boundaries. #Gaps in the Mechanism | Designing Gaps Beyond the Trap of Standardization