Up Close and Personal with End Users

This past week I went into project mode to assist with an application/desktop delivery plan and design in one of our healthcare customers.  My objective:  interview end users to help understand the pain levels to develop the right solution to deliver IT services for them so they can focus on their own objective:  Taking care of patients.  

Short version of this is, I will sit in front of workers from all over the hospital and allow them to take out their computer frustrations on me...  And I tell you what, I walked in feeling good about it and left feeling even better.  Coming from the depths of the data center, it can be rare that we get out in front of end users and chat it up with them.  We tend to leave that to the analysts or IT liaisons that work with the line of business.  That might have worked on initiatives where we were working replacing the core network or even some of the server virtualization solutions we are deploying.  The end user doesn't really care how we do it, just as long as it works.  And when we do it right, they don't know anything happened at all or it is just a minor blip that won't affect them.

The game changes when we start messing with that little space heater called a PC that sits under the desk. End users notice when that doesn't work, it is slow, it is replaced.  Now start talking about pulling that PC in the data center with virtualization, we are setting ourselves up for a major beat down if we don't address it the right way.  This isn't my first interview session with the end users as it relates to desktop delivery, I have done many of these before.  But it was one that I expanded the scope on and wanted more input and face time with all areas of the organization without their IT teams in the room.  It made me glad I did and I noted the following items:

1. 3rd Party point of view - I believe the users opened up quite a bit to me, it was only me in the room with them for most of the interviews.  The only other person was another member of our Varrow team, and I told them to let us have it in black and white.
2. On or Off Topic, it is all good data - the title of the meetings for them was "Experiences in Technical Environment", and I'm glad it was.  I wanted to hear it all, from applications to printing to badging in and out of the time clock system. Healthcare is very unique in how it's end users are typically very mobile, work all hours (24x7) and when things don't work as planned, lives can really be at stake.  Listening to all their stories really brings that to the front of mind that what they are doing is really a special thing.  It makes us want to fight even harder for them to get the right technology solutions in to make that PC work for them.
3. Communication, the face to face kind - in our busy world of email, texting, tweeting and everything else, we can get overloaded with data. It is nice to sit down in a room with people and get to know how their daily work life is as it relates to using a computer.  I also used a notebook and pen to take notes, not the iPAD or my laptop.  (My hand did hurt, I will admit...) to take the computer element out of the room.  This did include going to remote facilities and putting some focus on the extremely mobile EMS/EMT unit.  They present a use case that can benefit from a cached solution and require unique ways to get data to them in rural areas.
4. Sign of Good will - in the end, getting feedback before a solution is put in place will build some much needed good will between IT and the users we serve.  Consistent surveying can help, but only if you are able to do something with the data collected and they see results.  

Now the thing to keep in mind here is the need to make sure to dig deep on questions.  "My PC is slow" isn't a good answer, be aware of the surroundings and know how to cross examine that answer the right way. You might be surprised how much end users really do know about the systems they use even when they tell you they are "Computer Illiterate".  We are getting more and more tech savvy users all the time, it is the nature of how our kids are being taught in school, the phones we use, how we check our bank accounts. 

As I have stated before, the approach is so important in comparison to the technology.  We definitely need the technology to be on par to provide the features and performance needed, but we won't know any of those needs unless we know how the end user works day to  day.  Healthcare can be very different from other verticals, but no matter what industry you are in, paying a visit to your end users from time to time can be valuable when designing how to deliver the desktop to them.