softalk-pc-1982-12-reduced

Gib Hoxie, left, explains the features of MBA, while Brian Fischer displays a reduced version of the program's command reference chart.tronic spreadsheet, a database manager, a simple text processor, anda graphing module and bundled them into a single, integrated softwaretool.0-1-2 and Counting. To appreciate the gamble that was MBA interms of human careers, you need to know a little about the two menmost responsible for its creation and for the cofounding of ContextManagement Systems.Gib Hoxie and Brian Fischer were not a couple of undergraduatewunderkinder taking their first steps into the business world.Hoxie (the '' Gib" is a truncation of Gilbert) was a vice president andpartner in the immensely prestigious consulting firm of Booz, Allen,and Hamilton. Walking away from a partnership at Booz Allen is alittle like handing in the keys to Fort Knox. Fischer, who at twentyeightis fifteen years younger than Hoxie, hadn't yet made itquite that far up the ranks at Booz Allen; nevertheless it seems reasonableto suppose that his future there was promising-andfraught with security.But if Booz Allen was a high place from which to step down, itwas also a vantage point that facilitated forward thinking and educatedgambling.Hoxie had spent the better part of the seventies pondering andwrestling with the problem of developing effective management informationsystems. Early in the seventies, Harvey Poppel, a seniorvice president at Booz Allen, had begun promoting the concept ofinformation as a corporate resource-like cash; and the Booz Allenstaff had tried to encourage their major clients to think and act inthose terms.The translation of this concept into practical systems, however,proved to be elusive. " We found," recalls Hoxie, " that we were continuallyimplementing operating information systems-such thingsas accounting and word processing-and not true management informationsystems."The development of effective information systems for managerswas difficult largely because the manager's function is by natureantisystematic. Or, to put it another way, those roles in a company'soperation that lend themselves most readily to systematicprocedures are precisely the ones that don't require managerialtalent." A good manager is an exception handler," says Hoxie. " Theother people handle routines. Our problem was to develop an in-formation system for that kind of guy, one that would give him theability to pull together disparate pieces of information, so he couldfind his own solutions to problems that hadn' t come up before."A couple of events that occurred toward the end of the decadeconvinced Hoxie and Fischer (who joined Booz Allen in 1978) thatwhile elusive, the improvement of managerial productivity bymeans of electronic information technology was a realizable goal.The first of these events was the Booz Allen Multi-Client Studyof Managerial/Professional Productivity. This was a massive investigationinto the behavior and attitudes · of so-called knowledgeworkers in fifteen major business organizations. The study was orchestratedby Poppel and funded by most of the largest suppliers ofoffice automation equipment (including IBM, AT & T, Xerox, DEC,Exxon, and a good many anonymous others) who were interested inquantifying the case for office automation products aimed at themanagerial or professional worker.Participants in the study each carried a beeper that went offevery twenty minutes for three weeks of their professional lives.When the beepers beeped, the subjects pulled out a wallet full offorms on which they noted current activities and various otherpertinent bits of information. Hoxie still keeps one of those walletsin his desk at Context.When the study was finished, the Booz Allen staff evaluatedmillions of pieces of information and drew their conclusions.Among other things, they asserted that appropriate informationtechnology could reclaim about 15 percent of a manager's time andthat managers and professionals were by and large receptive to theprospect of office automation.Paper Losses. The other crucial experience was a consulting assignmentthat took Fischer and Hoxie to the Pacific Northwest, to akitchen cabinet-making division of International Paper. This divisionwas doing $25 million in sales, had $17 million in inventory,and was losing about $600,000 a month.This was in January of 1980. VisiCalc had been on the scene a littleunder half a year. Hoxie and Fischer brought along an Apple IIand prepared a materials requirement planning model for the client,using VisiCalc. The model demonstrated, among other things, thatthe company could stop buying raw materials and not build anythinguntil the end of the year, but that they'd have to hire 400 morepeople in June to prepare for the following year's production.12softolk for the IBM Personal Computer De cem ber 1982