Identifying Needs
The first step in fixing in problem is identifying the issue you need to solve. You cannot develop an effective plan to fix your organization’s top pain points until you know what the top pain points are.
Use a Survey
A good way to identify the biggest challenges for end users is to ask. Surveys are useful for identifying overall issues that you may want to address. You can create your own survey, asking employees about the toughest part of their jobs and areas where they could use some help.
Unless you already have a good idea of what the pain points are, it’s best to leave some of the questions open. Often, it’s hard to see where processes can be improved unless you’re personally involved in them. At this stage, you want to gather information and ideas. You will get better results if you can keep preconceived notions out of your survey.
When creating your own survey, however, be careful to ask enough questions to get the information you need, but not so many questions that people get overwhelmed and ignore you. Remember, you’re deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in part because your users already have too much to do. If you ask for too much of their time, they won’t give you any.
Factor 4 Index
The Factor 4 Index is a comprehensive survey that measures your organization on the four dimensions of the “new world” of work: inspiration, culture, organization, and technology. By finding out how your organization performs in each of those areas, you can identify areas to target for improvement with Office SharePoint Server 2007.
The survey asks employees to rate the organization on 64 statements, such as “My supervisors involve me in the decision-making process,” and “I find my job challenging.” It measures how workers feel the organization performs in regards to those statements and how they would like the organization to perform.
Your end users can trust the survey to keep their individual responses secret. You will only receive scores for a department if more than five employees from that department responded. The Factor 4 Index sends out the invitations, collects the answers, and processes the results. You will get only the analyzed results.
The survey is free and you can invite as many employees as you would like to participate.
Personal Interviews
Surveys are a great starting point, but they cannot tell you everything. Some people will not participate, and some critical issues may only be uncovered through questions you never thought to ask.
You should consider doing personal one-on-one interviews with some end users. These interviews have several advantages:
- Employees are more likely to participate and offer meaningful advice since you’re taking the time to talk to them specifically.
- Because of the open-ended nature of the interviews, they may identify pain points for you that you may not have discovered otherwise.
- Personal interviews are a good opportunity to meet end users and identify Super User candidates, which you will need later in the deployment.
The personal interviews should involve open-ended questions, such as:
- What is your biggest frustration with your job?
- What is the least favorite part of your day?
- Do you have any problems communicating with other departments?
- What business processes could be improved?
Keep in mind that answers will be specific to each person’s job. You still need to determine if the issues they identified are worthy of your time. Try to get a sense of how much time or money could be saved by improving their issues and use that information to prioritize your efforts.