Here’s the recording of the workshop I ran earlier today on using a process and template to help match user needs to technology capabilities. We worked through the example of an intranet and there was lots of interesting discussions as everyone chipped in through the session.
🖥️ View and download the slides
📄 View and download the template
I think this way of running short, focused online sessions works pretty well, and I will definitely be doing more in the future!
There has been a fair bit of interest in it since it was published, so I thought it might be useful to run a short online workshop running through how it works with a smallish group of people. As I have at this stage no real idea what I am doing, it will be free for public sector people.
At the end of the workshop, you will be able to:
The running order is as follows:
Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? So what are you waiting for? Book your place now!
Something that I have found helps an awful lot is having a simple way to match identified user needs with the technology capabilities needed to meet them.
It helps in two main ways:
By considering user needs first, then identifying individual capabilities to meet them, it’s possible to come up with solutions that are more likely to succeed and can often be cheaper and quicker to implement.
A good example of when I used this was when I was advising on a new intranet project. The initial requirements list had all sorts of stuff in it – HR policies, telephone directory, social networking, better collaboration (whatever that means!), and loads of others.
I was able to break it down into the needs we were trying to meet, and then come up with the technology capavilities to meet those needs. I found that adding an extra translation layer betwene the teo – tasks – helped with doing this. Here’s an example below:
Pretty obvious perhaps. But let’s look at another need:
Now, traditionally both of these things are requirements for an intranet. But broken down in this way, we can understand that we need an intranet to publish pages of content, but perhaps for the sharing of formal documents, a more specific capability is needed?
I then add a fourth column, which outlines the potential technology to deliver the capability. In the latter case, this could be a system such as Sharepoint or Google Drive, which may already exist in the organisation.
By following this process through with all the identified user needs, you’ll end up with a list of what technology you’ll need, along with a map of what you already have that can do those things, and where you have gaps.
To make it super easy, here’s a Google Doc template, with a worked example for the intranet, that you can copy and make use of.
Hope that’s useful!