Killing “bullshit jobs” with Antti Larvala, Visma
Tired of doing the same thing over and over? Repetitive tasks, unnecessary processes, bullshit jobs. Whatever you call it, it's killing creativity and innovation!
We spoke to Antti Larvala, Head of Development at Visma Sign about so called bullshit jobs and how to automate them.
Unnecessary processes. A danger to creativity and innovation.
Filling a company with time-consuming, repetitive tasks, is a straight road to killing creativity and innovation. At least if you ask Antti Larvala, Head of Development at Visma Sign.
Visma Sign is a leading eSigning service in the Nordics with +40 000 SME customers and nearly 2 million individual customers. Antti says the success of e-sign is due to it enabling automation of manual processes.
Antti Larvala, Head of Development at Visma Sign
– Every time a process requires manual labour and a copy and paste-function, it kills the human creativity. Therefor it should be removed or automated. Says Antti.
– When you have those unnecessary processes that are of no benefit to anybody, they are basically like "bullshit jobs". And bullshit jobs need to be killed, otherwise a company's levels of creativity and innovation rapidly diminishes.
– In my opinion, every process that doesn't require human creativity needs to be either removed or automated. You should always strive towards working less, but smarter, enabling you to focus on your core competencies and business.
A mindset of continuous improvement
A lot of companies have a long legacy of time-consuming processes, requiring manual labour.
So what's required in order to keep removing and automating unnecessary processes over time? Antti explains.
– Question everything! Do we really need this thing? How can we improve this process? Then you try to improve, iterate and develop. Every day, piece by piece. He says.
– I'd start by making a mental map, a vision of what the ideal solution for your business process would be. Then break down how to reach that ideal solution into smaller steps, develop, test and iterate.
Anttis best tips in process optimization
Question everything - Do we really need this? How can we make this process better?
Iterate, iterate, iterate in order to get a little bit better continuously.
Strive towards working less, but smarter.
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