The four noble truths of IT suffering

This article explores IT-related stress through the lens of an ancient Buddhist concept. It is for people who are concerned about IT's impact on people and their business, and who have the compassion to do something about it.

Old is not necessarily outdated. Old ways of thinking and working sometimes just need to be adapted to a new context. With that in mind, I adapted Buddhism's Four Noble Truths of Suffering to describe suffering in the IT domain. Yes, IT suffering. IT is stressful, for both users and providers. Users are anxious at the mere thought of having to call a service desk. Years after IT engineers have been on pager duty, they get a physiological reaction when a phone buzzes. IT affects people’s well-being. We need to take this seriously.

In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths acknowledge the universal existence of suffering and its root causes. They offer a framework for understanding suffering, its origin in desire and attachment, the possibility of its cessation, and the path to liberation from suffering through mindfulness, self-awareness, and transformative action.

My four noble truths of IT suffering are:

1. The truth of IT suffering: IT services have an impact on people’s emotional well-being.
2. The truth of the cause of IT suffering: inconsiderate behaviour and uncompromising algorithms cause IT suffering.
3. The end of IT suffering: IT suffering is alleviated by a focus on IT’s impact on people and their business.
4. The path to the end of IT suffering: acknowledge the existence of IT suffering and apply empathy and compassion to continually improve the IT service experience.

This adaptation is based on my thinking as described in Experience-dominant Logic , which can be summarized as:

• IT service affects people’s emotional well-being, so service experience should be an integral part of service design. This is a co-creational exercise with the users and other stakeholder, otherwise it's asking for trouble downstream.
• Value from service is individual and phenomenological, making it hard to measure and manage. With the right approach, the objective value can be measured but it is harder to ascertain subjective people's judgments and feelings about the objective value.
• Empathy is the key to reduce IT suffering.?But without compassion (taking action!) it does not help much.

The four noble truths of IT suffering are described in more detail below. The emphasis is not on product design but rather the services that enable users to benefit from the software, data, and devices.

1. The truth of IT suffering

Just as the First Noble Truth states that suffering is inherent in human existence, in the context of IT service, it acknowledges that suffering often arises from IT service. Users experience frustration from disruptions to their work and from poorly designed or executed service interactions, while providers are stressed from achieving customer satisfaction with limited autonomy, knowledge, and other resources.

In IT we talk about Digital Employee Experience (DEX), in particular with respect to tools that measure IT-related behaviour. DEX enhances survey metrics, which are increasingly problematic. People are fed up with surveys in general, let alone poorly-designed ones that detract from the desired experience. IT functions are therefore increasingly looking at indirect and inferred DEX metrics that complement direct survey metrics.

As Vedran Kri?ek mentioned to me on reading a draft of this article, opacity can lead to suffering. Users depend on systems but often don't understand how they work, leading to frustration and resentment. Many users, however, don't care how the service works. They don't care about the technical complexity that IT people love to talk about. Instead, they simply want to do their job. If they cannot, then they experience stress. Stress leads to disengagement, which appears as poor work that amplifies the problems they have with IT, often leading to lost end-customers and marketshare.

2. The truth of the cause of IT suffering

The Second Noble Truth suggests that the cause of suffering is desire and attachment. With IT service, the cause is a combination of inconsiderate behaviour and uncompromising algorithms that, in turn, are caused by inconsiderate behaviour. This thoughtlessness is often caused by ignorance of the other party’s situation, but can also be affected by constraints and perverse incentives that discourage people from doing the right thing, or by lack of energy and resources. It is seldom due to an individual but rather, an organizational system that leads them to pursue the wrong goal. In other words, it is about inconsiderate management: without deliberately leading with DEX in mind we get the default, which appears as inconsiderate and uncompromising.

3. The end of IT suffering

Like the Buddhist path to the cessation of suffering by renouncing desire and attachment, addressing poor IT service experience requires the renouncement of output-oriented service level agreements and associated metrics. Instead, the focus should be on outcome: IT’s business impact and how people experience the business impact, the service interactions, and the relationship with the service provider. Experience is measured in terms of judgments and feelings, for example how quick a service interaction that took 90 objective minutes was subjectively perceived. This will differ from person to person, and for each person, from occasion to occasion, depending on a variety of factors. This makes experience so hard to 'manage'. Yet, how irrational it often appears, it is the only thing that counts. People's decisions are primarily emotional, which are then rationalized.

4. The path to the end of IT suffering

Develop an understanding of experience-dominant logic in general, explore the dynamics of the specific situation, agree and maybe formalize the desired impact of specific IT services on people and their business, and continually hypothesize and experiment to improve the IT service experience.

DEX improves when IT leadership cares enough to make changes in first acknowledging the problems, taking action to formalize the desired business impact and experience. Sometimes, particularly when the IT service is a commodity such as connectivity, the only feasible desired experience is 'good enough' - there is no point in aiming for 'delightful' connectivity. This is different when a solution is in the genesis or custom-built stage (these terms refer to Wardley mapping ). In these cases, delight is feasible.

Just as the Fourth Noble Truth outlines the Eightfold Path to end suffering, a similar approach can be adopted for IT service. Both users and providers can follow a path that includes elements like:

1. Right understanding: Develop a comprehensive understanding of the value of the human experience associated with service. Recognize that experience is a major consideration in the design and execution of human-centric products and services. Understand that empathy plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall experience.
2. Right thought: Cultivate thoughts that prioritize emotional well-being and recognize the influence of people's emotions on their experience of products and services.
3. Right speech: Communicate in ways that acknowledge and respect the emotional impact of products and services on both providers and consumers. Foster open and honest communication to build trust within relationships.
4. Right action: Take actions that are aligned with creating positive experiences for both providers and consumers. Ensure that products and services are designed and executed with careful consideration of the emotional well-being and desired outcomes of individuals involved. Adapt when the unexpected happens, as it will.
5. Right livelihood: Engage in professions that prioritize the creation of value through meaningful experiences. Choose roles that enable the facilitation of value to consumers while promoting emotional well-being and empathy.
6. Right effort: Make a conscious effort to continually improve the experience associated with products and services. Regularly evaluate metrics and indicators of experience, seeking to align them with desired outcomes and making experimental changes when necessary.
7. Right mindfulness: Cultivate mindfulness in every step of the experience journey. Be aware of the individuality and uniqueness of each person's experience and the dynamic nature of experiences over time. Practice being present and attentive to the psychological and technical characteristics that influence the overall experience.
8. Right concentration: Focus attention and resources on creating and enhancing experiences that are individually perceived and socially shared. Direct efforts towards understanding and meeting the needs, desires, and wants of stakeholders, recognizing that value is ultimately determined by them.

The Eightfold Path speaks about the "right" way to do things. This should not be interpreted as blindly following a one-size-fits-all process, but adopting it to fit the specific context.

This IT-oriented adaptation of the Eightfold Path reflects the importance of experience-dominant logic, emotional well-being, empathy, relationship-building, and continuous improvement in the context of human-centric products and services.

Buddhism teaches wisdom and compassion. In IT, an understanding of the impact of your work on people and their business, and a concern for how they think and feel, will help you make better things that make things better.

Finally, many thanks to Jason Cox for encouraging me to write this article and to Hank M. for his review and substantive improvements.