Sharing is a dirty word

From the time we're born, we're encouraged to think that we're special, one of a kind, irreplaceable and unique. Shared services goes against this mantra.

In order to work, shared services has in its central premise that its customers are sufficiently alike enough to be able to have a standardised service provided to them. It's cheap, which is exactly what governments and companies want, especially when it comes to IT.

But in every other aspect of our lives, we're being encouraged to be non-conformist.

Think about the boom in smartphone devices, and how you can make them really your own. You can have wildly different covers and apps. It's a marketing point, and companies use it to suck us in.

Then there's the new custom of choosing your laptop to make a statement about you as a person. There are so many choices, with various colours, sizes and specs.

Some companies are even encouraging this sense of tech individuality by offering BYO laptop programs.

We can also individualise our online presence by putting our own mark on social media pages, uploading our essence in digital form so everyone knows what it is to be the one and the only, you.

Humans sometimes only seem to be united in their quest to be different.

Therefore, I wasn't overly surprised to hear the Queensland Government's shared services woes, outed in an auditor-general's report this week and culminating in Queensland Premier Anna Bligh renouncing the shared services dream.

"The Queensland Government will abandon the one-size-fits-all shared services model as the exclusive model for corporate services across the whole of government," Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said in a statement. "The whole-of-government IT provider, CorpTech, will be overhauled to better match agency needs — this will include an assessment of which agencies are best served by their own technical services."

This problem has also been displayed in NSW's roll-out of a standard Cerner electronic record system in hospitals around the state. Some have said that the rigid design for the US system just doesn't suit Australia, and isn't flexible enough for hospitals' different needs.

Western Australia's shared services program hit multiple problems before finally getting off the ground. One of them, like Queensland, has been the large number of employment awards that need to be considered for HR systems. Consolidation seems difficult when everyone wants their special level of pay. But simplification is the key.

NSW encountered a similar problem with its now dead integrated ticketing system Tcard. The extremely complicated fare structure to cater for everyone was tough for system builder ERG Group to navigate. And, of course, just before announcing a new contract to start again on the integrated ticketing path, the government announced the MyZone simplification of fares.

Until the systems for the shared services can be more flexible to cater for individual needs, and until individuals can get over their egotistical idea that they're so special, shared services are always going to be the cake that sinks in the middle.

So what do I think needs to change? The systems, yes. But most of all, human nature does too.