Not all workarounds are so visible

The well-worn shortcut through the grass. We've all seen it.

Two perfectly constructed footpaths, yet a dirt track cuts across the grass between them.

No one designed it. No one approved it. Yet, over time, enough people found it easier to create their own path.

Organisations are full of these paths. The challenge is that most of them aren't visible.

The process people follow isn't always the process that's documented

When organisations design new systems, improve processes or implement technology, they often begin with an assumption:

We know how people work today.

But do we?

The documented process may say one thing. The reality is often quite different.

Employees create shortcuts and they:

• Build spreadsheets outside the system.

• Maintain unofficial trackers.

• Save templates

• Develop manual workarounds

• Ask a colleague to do a task that the system technically should do itself.

These aren't always acts of resistance.

More often, they're acts of adaptation.

Humans are very clever at finding the quickest, easiest or least frustrating way to get their work done.

Every workaround tells a story

Rather than viewing workarounds as something to eliminate, change practitioners should first become curious, because it’s a clue.

It might reveal:

• unnecessary complexity

• poor system usability

• duplicated effort

• policy that no longer reflects reality

• gaps in training

• conflicting measures or incentives

• delays in approvals

• technology that doesn't support how work actually happens.

  
  

Sometimes the workaround is an improvement on the official one.

If we don't understand why it exists, we risk designing a future state that simply recreates the same problems.

The danger of designing from assumptions

One of the biggest risks in organisational change is defining the wrong problem.

If our understanding of the current state is incomplete, our solution is likely to be as well.

That's why revisiting the current state is so important, even if documentation such as process maps already exist.

Process maps describe activities, but they rarely describe the frustrations or confusion, or the countless small decisions employees make every day to keep work moving.

The most valuable insights often live in these hidden moments.

Journey mapping uncovers what process maps miss

This is where current-state journey mapping becomes incredibly valuable.

A good journey map captures beyond just activities by exploring:

• what people are doing

• what they are thinking

• what they are feeling

• where effort increases

• where delays occur

• where workarounds emerge

• where people lose confidence or become frustrated

• where people have already improved the process themselves.

  
  

These conversations often reveal the ‘unofficial’ way work gets done.

And that's usually where the richest opportunities for improvement lie.

Look for the paths through the grass

Next time you're observing a process or facilitating a workshop, ask yourself:

• Where are the paths through the grass?

• What spreadsheets exist outside the system?

• What sticky notes sit beside the monitor?

• Which steps are quietly skipped?

• What advice gets passed from one employee to another that never appears in the procedure manual?

  
  

Those hidden workarounds are telling you something.

The goal isn't to force people back onto the original footpath.

It's to understand why they left it in the first place.

Because sometimes the shortcut isn't the problem.

It's the clearest signal that the original path was never the best route.

Questions for change practitioners

Before designing your next future state, consider asking:

• What assumptions are we making about how work is currently done?

• Where might hidden workarounds exist?

• Who actually performs this work every day?

• Have we observed the work, or only reviewed the documentation?

• What are people thinking and feeling throughout the process?

• Which workarounds solve a genuine problem, and which introduce unnecessary risk?
  

The best change initiatives don't just redesign processes.

They first seek to understand the invisible paths people have already created.