User Profile

This aggregate profile of users comes from experience with a variety of customers. While the analysis is valid, any resemblance to actual people or work groups is purely coincidental. Our initial user profiles are categorized as users, administrators, and managers.

Users

The users were classified as:

• Not terribly sophisticated technically
• Oriented toward personal interactions rather than computers (sales people)
• Short attention spans
• Need to see the explicit value of the system in helping them sell more
• Inconsistent in their understanding of overarching business goals, their role, tasks, and resource availability.

The only real change in the classification of the users is the surprise at how quickly they adopted a computer-based system. Sales people gave great feedback on how easy it is to get the information they need quickly and how simple it is to navigate to exactly the right resource.

Administrators

The administrators of this system are the people who understand the business side, not the technology side of the organization. We experienced the challenge of requiring technical expertise to manage the systems. Often the goal of productivity is offset when there is a bottleneck in getting the right elements into the support system. The administrators were fully capable of developing Powerpoint presentations, creating Word documents, accessing and editing Excel spreadsheets, and navigating the Internet.

The administrators have experienced very little learning curve in using the system. The application is intuitive, However, the biggest challenge is the logic and strategy in identifying the right resources and creating the roadmap.

Manager

The manager group was typically responsible for aggressive quotas with little time to spend on systems or processes. Some were excellent managers who could create high performing teams. In some cases, turnover was inhibiting performance since the manager had so many new members on the team. In other cases, the managers were inexperienced and struggled to demonstrate good management skills.

High performing managers reported significant time savings in having the system relieve some management burdens. The email reminders helped focus these managers quickly to next steps. The inexperienced managers were able to quickly access support and guidance to improve their management skills and specific actions.

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