In the good old days, users feared computers. We intruded into the cube walls, left a strange device, and then walked away. Sometimes they used them. Mostly they stared at them with morose fascination then eventually went out to surf the Web. A few organized and motivated users founded users' groups to help "develop technology decisions based on the user perspective". As computer literacy became more prevalent, these user groups also grew, until we now find them at nearly every client site.
These groups take on many forms. Sometimes they are informal organizations run by a handful of confident users. Occasionally they start out as "focus groups" and end up becoming a permanent part of the IT decision-making process. A rare few come from groups of interested users drawn from all aspects of the business to inform technical design. Regardless of their composition, consultants need to work with them without getting bogged down.
All of the user groups I have encountered over the years fall into three broad categories: groups headed by confident users, formal groups brought together by management for specific purposes, and groups of decision makers attempting to exert influence over critical decisions outside of their own area of expertise.
Confidence is not competence
My first encounter with a
user group threw me headlong into one of the most difficult situations these
groups present. My client desperately needed to upgrade his workstations from
the existing clones to anything that was more stable. My company arranged a good
deal on the new hardware and threw in the deployment at a relatively low
cost.
After planning the upgrade and buying the equipment, we began to encounter unexpected resistance. Many people were not happy with the new computers replacing their five-year old clones. They stared at us resentfully as we took away their barely functional machines. Finally, I brazenly asked one of them about his problem with the new computers. He told me that "John" told him that his new computer was a piece of cheap junk.
Now, I was pretty upset. We sold those desktops at cost to get the deployment work. They were nice machines for the time. So I started asking around. It turned out that everyone knew and trusted this John. He was the informal technical guru of the shop floor. He went so far as to organize his own computer meetings after hours. Obviously computers interested him.
After I eventually tracked him down, something else became abundantly clear. He had no knowledge of computers. He definitely had interest in computers, but he never really worked with them before. Nonetheless, he knew more than his compatriots and that gave him the confidence to make declarations. Once he made a declaration, he would not back down. Try as I might I could not get him to change his mind.
From the perspective of experience, I should have taken a friendly approach with him. Instead I proved him wrong, time and time again, in front of his boss and peers. Humiliation eventually drove him to shut his mouth around me but it did not solve the long-term problem.
This kind of user group appears in all organizations. People look to their cube-mates and coworkers for help with technical problems. They ask around, and eventually find someone who can help them. The ringleaders can be competent, but they are almost always overconfident in their own abilities. We can most effectively deal with these groups by being friendly and open with the primary influencers. This allows us to turn the group to our advantage, using its informal communications network to gather and distribute information.
Play video
There are currently no comments for this post.