Yes, IT Departments truly are the root of all evil and end users are the center of the universe. Thank you for pointing that out :) If only the end users could create all of the IT systems and run everything themselves all the worlds problems would be solved! Great Article keep up the brilliant research!

Actually, what you are describing is that IT departments need account managers, who visit the customers of the IT department (the end users, that is), and keeps them happy by giving them what they need.

This also solves the problem that many technical IT people don't like to talk to customers in the first place.

Sjaak Laan

I agree with your article for the most part. I would also say that this is all more or less common sense. I don't think the merits of maintaining a good relationship with users or getting buy in from users through inclusion has ever really come into question by anyone serious about achieving the best results.

I think the more important question is how can software teams structure their internal processes to enable absorption of shifting user requirements better and generally be more mindful of user perception. The 'why' is known but the 'how' is less clear.

It seems so quite true that Users can build their own systems and make IT irrelevant. However, at the end of the day, Users will still be needing IT for a thousand reasons: maintenance, support, enhancements, modifications, queries, installations, connectivities, interfaces, security, etc., will have to be dealt with sometime in future. These are not User competencies and if they become one, then they should be in IT.

Despite these realities, however, working with Users and bordering on their satisfaction should still and always be the first order of the day.

Luke and Beth raise great points; the "how" of understanding user requirements is something that eludes many organizations today.

Too often in IT, our interaction with users is at time of failure-- it's no wonder all users seem like whiners, since that's when we hear from them!

Only by understanding user behavior more holistically and anticipating future requirements based on current activity will be able to maintain a secure and standardized (and manageable!) infrastructure.
Cameron Turner
CEO
www.clickstreamtech.com

It's great to see an increased focus on the end user. The fear of end-user rebellion and "shadow IT" anarchy shouldn't be the key driver. The end-user is important because if software applications are not adopted and used efficiently and effectively by those end-users, the business objectives that drive the investment in development and support are not met. You could make the case that the end-user is the most important factor in IT delivering value to the business. There may be a small contingent of IT professionals who have developed antipathy towards those pesky end users. But the IT professional I meet are very keen and dedicated to improving the functionality and performance of the core business applications. What they are missing are real metrics about the end user experience that will allow them to best prioritize their efforts. Which transactions are performing poorly? For which users? Which end-users are seeing system errors? Is the navigation so cumbersome in real use that the users are abandoning transactions? IT shops that do want to focus on the end-user should investigate End User Experience Management software solutions. These solutions monitor the end-user experience and provide comprehensive global metrics on response times, system errors, transaction utilization, even user errors. That insight provides benefits across the board, helping you proactively target response time issues, solve end-user problems faster, identify usage and adoption issues and even make priority decisions about ongoing application investments.

Lori Wizdo
Knoa Software
www.knoa.com

An important limitation to note is that there is no common "Lingo" between IT and Users. Until that common "Lingo" either emerges in an organization or one side comes to use other side's "lingo" it is difficult to see how delivery meets user needs. We see this convergence happening more rapidly on the user's end (atleast they understand Files, records and NDMs). If IT developers can talk in terms of business terms like (EOQ in materials management or Regulation-E in Finance) then there is great hope ahead.

Absolutely agree, having been at both ends, worked support, developed code as well as DBA work, and now working with business on one end while on the IT side as BA, I do see a lot of oldschool mentality that does not seem to see that Business is the driver, and IT is merely a support role in the enterprise.
Collaboration and progress is expected and should be delivered, not stagnant adherence to the status quo.

Loved it!
That user support specialist you quoted at the start of the article, was that Anonymous 26/7/07?