USERS SUPPORTPanayiotis Christodoulou

Objectives

The mission of a support group and the parts of a mission statement

The steps in staffing a support position The contents of a training program for support staff How to manage a user support project Which software tools help with project management tasks The industry certifications that are available to support

professionals About professional help desk and user support associations Ethical principles that guide the professional behavior of

support workers

Previous Lecture

How product and support standards emerged

Common tools and methods support �specialists use to evaluate and select computer products

How organizations develop and implement �product standards

Product Evaluation Strategies and Standards

Product standards are lists of hardware, operating system, network, and applications software products that have been selected to meet the needs of users in an organization. In the early 1980s, it was not unusual for companies to have a wide variety of hardware and software to support. Different hardware and software were not compatible. The lack of hardware and software standards caused many problems.

How Product Standards Emerged

Incompatible hardware and software provided for limited opportunities to transfer and share information between users. In order to repair broken hardware, companies needed to keep large inventories of PC hardware parts required on site. Also, because the hardware platforms were so varied, it was difficult to train and equip hardware service technicians to repair all of the hardware in use. User skills were difficult to transfer from one system to another. These problems combined to increase costs as support groups struggled to assist users with so many different types of PCs and software. To help cut costs, companies enforced product standards for a small number of hardware configurations, adopted standard operating systems and limited the number of applications available in each software category.

The responsibility for setting organization-wide support standards varies from organization to organization. To establish standards, generally competing products are evaluated. During product evaluation, the support staff researches and analyzes computer product features, capabilities, and suitability to solve specific user needs. This may include collecting product information, conducting performance tests, comparing competing products, making decisions or recommendations, and communicating the results of their work. User support staff continually evaluates new hardware and software products and upgrades by answering the following questions:

Methods for Evaluating and Selecting Computer Products

1) Does the product or upgrade work as advertised by the vendor?2) Is a competing product significantly better than one currently

being used?3) Is a new product or upgrade compatible with existing hardware,

network, and operating system configurationsthe organization has in place?

4) Is the product cost-effective to acquire and maintain, and will it increase user productivity?

5) Will the product help reduce the total cost of ownership to the organization?

6) Is the product likely to become an industry standard?7) Is it better to upgrade now or to wait for a future release?8) Is the product stable enough (has few bugs) that it will solve

more problems than it creates?

Individuals evaluating software and hardware have several tools and information resources available. Software vendors often offer evaluation versions of their software and occasionally hardware vendors will offer evaluation hardware components. A software evaluation copy permits support staff to try out a product’s features independently and assess its ability to meet an organization’s needs.

When decision makers need to decide which of several products they will select to support they use tools such as industry standard or best-selling products, products used by competitors, benchmarks, weighted point evaluation method, request for proposals (RFP) and acknowledged subjective criteria.

User support staffs often select industry standard products, which are products that have a large market share. By selecting popular software products, an organization might be able to reduce costs because the products are more likely to have trade book publications, training materials and support service vendors. In addition to using popular software, organizations often look at the software that their competitors use.

A benchmark is an objective test or measurement that is used to evaluate the speed, capacity, capabilities, or productivity of rival products. Evaluators use benchmarks to compare competing products. Benchmark comparisons are popular because they are objective. Benchmarks are based on objective evaluation criteria, or factors used in a product selection procedures that are relatively unbiased. Another method to evaluate software is comparison conducted using several evaluation criteria of predetermined importance to grade competing products and arrive at a numerical score as a basis for selection.

To perform a weighted point evaluation, evaluator importance of each criterion, rate each competing product against all the evaluation criteria, if more than one evaluator rates products, compute the average rating for each product for criterion by the importance of the criterion, compute the total ratings for each product and compare product ratings.

The evaluation criteria selected in the weighted point method are based on several imporant factors including specific type of hardware or software product to be evaluated, the needs of end users, support issues and cost.

Many public organizations are required to use an objective evaluation process, such as a bidding process or request for proposal procedure. A request for proposal (RFP) is a product selection or competitive bidding procedure that uses objective criteria to choose among follows eight primary steps. Step one is to conduct a needs analysis. Step two is to develop a purchase specification for the equipment or software. Step three is to define the decision criteria and the importance of each criterion. Step four is to write the RFP document, which describes the user requirements, bidding procedure, and decision criteria. Step five is to send the RFP to prospective vendors. Step six is to receive written decisions step seven, the organization analyzes the responses to the RFP. The last step is to select the vendor and award the purchase contract.

Product evaluators base many hardware and software purchase decisions on objective subjective evaluation criteria can be used. Subjective evaluation criteria are factors used in a product selection procedure that are not directly related to the fit between a product’s features and a user’s needs. These factors include personal relationships with vendors, convenience, personal preferences, and reliance on traditional or historical purchasing channels. Subjective criteria are neither measurable nor repeatable from one evaluator to another and there may be disagreement between evaluators on results.

Even though an organization often sets product standards, it does not always mean that the standard is a “one-size-fitsall” requirement. Most organizations strike a balance between allowing employees to select anything that they would like to use and only allowing them to use one product.

An organization’s computer product and service standards can develop from a variety of sources. Often an organization will form a committee to determine product standards. A product standards committee is a group of support specialists, end users, technical support staff, and managers whose task is to define the current computer-product standards, maintain them, and coordinate their use in the organization. This committee may also set acceptable use guidelines that govern how computers are permitted to be used and the penalties for misuse.

Product Support Standards

In many organizations there are two forces that influence the adoption and implementation of computer product and service standards. One influence is the organization’s existing inventory of hardware and software. The second force that drives changes in product and service standards is the continual arrival of new products, services, and product upgrades. The decision to replace an existing product or service is often difficult because of the scope of the change if the installed base if very large. Every decision to modify an existing technology standard or adopt a new one requires analysis and evaluation of products and services as well as the examination of the support cost increases for installation, upgrades, training, documentation, troubleshooting, and help desk services.

Objectives Basic strategies to perform user needs

analysis and assessment Major steps analysts undertake to analyze

and assess a user’s needs Common tools that aid support specialists in

a user needs analysis project

User Needs Analysis and Assessment

The support staff often analyzes and assesses user needs to understand the user’s environment and work situation. Once the user’s needs are understood, the support person can recommend products to services that will provide a solution.

The needs assessment can take many forms including a formal assignment from supervisor or an informal request from a coworker. Most needs assessments, weather formal or informal.

Overview of User Needs Analysis and Assessment

Each step in the user needs analysis can be grouped into one of three phases: preparation, investigation, or decision. In the preparation phase, analysts try to understand the personal or organizational goals as well as the decision criteria and constraints. In the investigation phase, analysts try to understand the present situation and alternatives to it. The decision phase is where analysts develop a model of the proposed solution and decide whether to build or buy a solution.

User Needs Analysis Steps and Tasks

In the first step, organizational documents such as a written strategic business plan or a mission statement can be used to determine the personal or organizational goals. If these documents are not available, it might be helpful to interview managers, supervisors or individual purchasers. There is a list of six questions that can be used to find the information about the goals. The purpose of these questions is to learn the big picture of how the future system or service will fit into the environment and culture.

In the second step, it is important for the analyst to consider what is feasible or possible in terms of time, money or technology. Feasibility is an investigation into the economic, operational, technical and timeline constraints during a user needs analysis and assessment process. Economic feasibility is examining what budget constraints will influence the final decision on the project. Operational feasibility is what other systems, procedures or personnel will be affected by the interaction with the new system. Technological feasibility concerns the limitations, due to the capabilities of existing technology, which impose constraints on possible solutions. Timeline feasibility concerns the time constraints, which may rule out some possible alternatives.

Step three is to clearly define the problem. Not all problems are “computer” problems. Often, they can turn out to be organizational, personnel, workflow, political, management or resource problems. The question “Do I really understand the problem I’m trying to solve for this user?” should guide the needs analysis from beginning to end.

Step four is to identify the roles of stakeholders. Stakeholders are the participants in a user needs analysis and assessment project who might gain or lose from its success or failure. There are four kinds of stakeholders that are important in a needs analysis project. Stakeholders include end users, managers, technical support staff, and the needs assessment analyst.

The support analysts should learn whom the end user(s) are, and learn about their job responsibilities, computer experience, training, background and how long they have worked for the organization. The analyst should also determine what managers will be making the final decision, how knowledgeable about the application the managers are, and what organizational and computer experience they bring to the process. The support analyst is a key participant and should clarify their own role in the needs assessment process in order to understand the roles of the other participants. If there is an existing IT staff, they may be responsible for installing, configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting the system an analyst recommends.

The needs analyst might want to develop a written profile that summarizes information about each participant in a project. A profile can include contact information, background, primary job functions, and interests in the outcome of the project.

Step five is to identify sources of information. Some common sources of information that a support analyst should investigate are interviews with end users or managers, surveys or questionnaires sent to end users who will be affected, ]procedural manuals that detail how to operate the current system(s), direct observation of the existing system or situation, forms used for input into the existing system, reports output from the existing system, problem reports or help desk logs for the existing system, and reports and recommendations from consultants or auditors who have studied the existing system.

Step six is to develop an understanding of the existing situation. In this step the analysts collect and examine important papers (examples of forms, reports, and documentation), interview key participants (end users, managers, and technical support staff), observe the operation of the existing system, and develop a clear understanding of what the existing system does and how it works. The goal or outcome of this step is to build a model that describes the existing system. A model is a narrative or graphic plan that approximates an aspect of an organization (such as work flow) or a computer system.

Three key questions that support analysts need to ask at the end of this step are “Do I understand the existing system well enough to explain how it operates to other participants?”, “Do I understand which features of the existing system users like?”, and “Do I understand what users think is wrong with the existing system?”. Without an understanding of each of these aspects of the existing system or situation, analysts are not prepared to consider alternatives with which to replace or repair it.

Step seven is to investigate alternatives to the existing situation. In this step, analysts try to resolve problems with the current situation or system including alternatives such as adding additional resources, making changes to the current hardware or software, upgrading current hardware or software, purchasing new hardware and/or purchasing new software. Sometimes it is useful to look at vendors that provide solutions or products aimed at specific markets.

Step eight is to develop a model of the proposed solution. The decision phase begins by building a model that often includes a narrative description of the proposed system or solution and one or more graphic aids to help users and managers understand the proposal. When the solution is not obvious or when there is a legal requirement, analysts my do a cost-benefit analysis, which is a comparison of the expenses a project will incur to the project’s payoffs to the organization.

Step nine is to make a build-versus-buy decision. The build-versus-buy decision is the decision whether to build a custom system or purchase one off the shelf. Sometimes it is appropriate to purchase off-the-shelf software, however, custom-developed software can have the advantage of being designed to suit a user’s exact needs. A turnkey system includes an integrated package of hardware, software, and support services purchased from a single vendor. Table 9-1 on page 300 summarizes some of the advantages and disadvantages of building versus buying a system.

There are a variety of needs assessment tools that can aid an analyst. Some of the tools are relatively easy for the analyst to write, however, others require more extensive work and, in some cases, special software.

A project charter is a short narrative that answers basic questions such as what are the objectives of the assessment project and what the space of the needs analysis are.

Needs Analysis and Assessment Tools

A cost-benefit analysis is often in the form of a side-by-side comparison, or balance sheet, which lists costs on one side and benefits on the other. Table 9-2 shows an example of items that might appear on a cost-benefit balance sheet. Cost-benefit analyses are not always easy to perform because there are some aspects of a project that might be difficult to quantify. Intangible benefits are expected results from a computer acquisition that are difficult to measure, quantify, or calculate.

There are a variety of data collection instruments. An input form is a paper document or display screen image used to collect information about a business transaction. Input forms are sometimes called source documents. Output forms contain the results of a business transaction or process.

Written instructions about how to perform a business transaction or handle a routine organizational procedure are called procedure documentation. An operating or problem log is a list of events or activities recorded in the sequence that the events occur. Also, analysts often use interviews and questionnaires to collect relevant information from users about the work they do and how an existing or proposed computer system might affect their work.

Interviews and questionnaires should be constructed to extract the appropriate information. There are two basic kinds of questions that can be used in an interview or questionnaire format. An open-ended question asks users to choose their own words, instead of predetermined responses, to answer the questions. In a forced-choice question, a user chooses from among several predetermined responses. Questions that are designed by a team are often better than those written by one person.

Support analysts can often gain valuable insights into user needs by watching them work. Direct observation can be a powerful method of data collection in situations where questionnaires, interviews, procedure documentation, and other forms of data collection aren’t possible, or as a supplement to other materials.

A chart or a diagram can illustrate the flow of information in an organization, relationships between employees, or the parts of an information processing system. A flowchart is a schematic drawing that uses symbols to represent the parts of a computer system or steps in a procedure.

An I-P-O chart represents the input, processing, and output steps required to perform a task. An I-P-O chart answers three fundamental questions about a procedure that a user or a computer performs: Input: where do I get the information with which to work? Processing: What do I do to process or transform the information? Output: What do I do with the information when I’m done?

A prototype is a working model that support analysts build to let users evaluate how the finished product of an analysis project will actually work. Prototyping has become an increasingly popular tool for support analysts.Prototype systems can give users a realistic preview of how a new system might operate.

Project management software can help project leaders and workers organize the steps in a large project, set priorities, establish and monitor project costs, and schedule staff and activities. Not every needs assessment project requires all of the steps and the use of every resource or tool described in this chapter. The support analyst chooses from different approaches and different tools to use based on the task. The most important fact to remember is that user needs analysis and assessment is a process, and the process and tools analysts choose to solve one problem will likely be different from the process and tools for another.