Experian blog: Make or break - understanding your users
As part of my series of posts on ensuring stakeholder buy-in for data strategy projects, my third recommended step is understanding your end-users.
Most of us prefer it when we are in our comfort zones. Things are working fine so why change anything? But the critical success factor of any implementation project is the ability to break through fixed or traditional ideas and for employees at the coal face to embrace the changes you have made. If they don't, there is a very high chance that the project will fail.
Employees therefore need to be encouraged into thinking flexibly and adapting to proposed changes. But we all know it’s not as easy as that.
One proven strategy is to actively engage with employees either individually or in focus group style consultations. Management does not always understand the way things work on the front line. What are the current data processes? How is data captured and handled afterwards? What data security issues are there? The list of considerations is endless, and one that can only be understood by listening to the people involved in the everyday running of the business.
Engaging more deeply with these all important end-users allows them to feel their needs and wants are being heard, but ultimately helps you understand them. It can really enable you to pre-empt issues, address concerns and manage any push back. As a result you can use employee insight to integrate ideas, make changes to the project, and tailor future communications and messages to address core areas you have identified.
Next time, I’ll give my tips on keeping these users engaged throughout the lifetime of the data project.
Kiran Gill is a data strategy consultant within Experian Marketing Information Services with over 13 years of experience working with customer data in various sectors.