Stratum Radio Series on Last Mile Configuration of InforEAM by Michael Snyder (1 of 3)

In this week's Stratum Radio, we begin a 3-part series on The Last Mile Configuration and End User Adoption of InforEAM.

In this episode, we address the steps necessary for proper “Front-End Configuration For Usability“. A successful system deployment is completely dependent on your teams interaction with the end users to ensure all business processes are properly documented and reflected in your Front-End configuration! Not doing so, significantly impacts User Adoption. Listen to the “How” on this episode of Stratum Radio!

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

00:07                                   All right, you listeners out there. Thank you very much for joining stratum radio. We're going to begin a series with a gentleman by the name of Michael Snyder. He is with Stratum Consulting and we're talking about the last mile configuration and user adoption. Let's get going.

00:25                                   Okay. We decided that we needed to do this series because there's a lot of people who aren't deploying systems out there, right? And, and uh, if you've ever been a part of a, uh, a system deployment, you know that there are challenges and really the, the biggest and probably the best part of being able to deploy these things is try to figure out how to do it efficiently and effectively. So that's why we created the series with stratum consulting with Michael Snyder and it's that, you know, everybody just recognize everybody just gives this big bang, boom, get it out there, deploy the system. But it's really that last mile configuration and user adoption. So this is a, a one into three series and we're going to be talking about in this episode front end configuration for usability. The next one is back in configuration of off corporate business rules, which are very important.

01:21                                   And then finally the integration with legacy systems. How to do that effectively so that when you do get it done, that's this last mile, it's effective and people have that greater adoption. So welcome Michael Snyder. He's going to be, it's pen and paper time. Everybody pen and paper time. Let's get ready. These are 10 minute segments. Pop, get going. Let's get moving. So here's Michael Schneider. All right, welcome to Stratum radio. We're going to be talking a little bit in this series. We're going to be talking about the last mile configuration and support of the end user adoption, which is very important. This is one of probably three, four, you know, topics that are really designed about supporting that end user adoption. Now we've got a gentleman by the name of Michael Snyder. He's with Stratum, he's a senior pro and all that stuff. He's got a stack card out there on LinkedIn. That's a pretty incredible, so I highly recommend that you go on out to LinkedIn, find Michael Schneider, stratum consulting. Reach out to that gentleman. Now, Michael, we're going to be talking a little bit about front end configuration for usability and, and for me, I just want to let you know I've been a lot of part of a lot of implementation and usability and end user adoption is just absolutely vital to the success of any implementation. Can you give the listeners of stratum radio just sort of that, why is front end configuration for usability so important?

02:57                                    The reason that the front end

03:00                                    is so important and the configuration of front end important is that's where the users interface with the application. If they don't like that application, they aren't going to use it. And if they don't use it, then the uh, organization is not going to benefit from all the great data that you've collected to be able to do the analytics and all the backend analysis that you need to do to improve your business. But if the users aren't using it, you know, you're, you're out of luck.

03:28                                    Yeah. And that's a real, a good point. If, if, if I don't like the look, feel, and it is, it's, it's sort of vanity in a sense. If I don't like the look and feel of my interface and if I'm not able to quickly access and get information out that is relevant to my success, to my business, to my job, whatever it might be, I'm not gonna use it. I'm going to, I'm going to find the easiest way to circumvent that problem. What do you do to ensure that you are configuring the system with usability in mind?

04:04                                    Um, it's more a matter of, of of talking to the end users getting their, their input. You know, when they work with the screens, you need to find out if there's a faster way that they can actually do that. Uh, do we need to fill in some more default values? Do we need to be able to validate data based on other pieces of information? Are there, and we need to highlight the important things that you want them to be able to enter and we need to give them messages about what's happening, you know, when the top of the screen rather than it to get caught up in a window that they have to click on. If we can minimize the number of clicks for them to get their job done, they'll do their job in the system rather than some other way.

04:46                                    But that requires a lot of, okay, upfront it's detail and you've got to get everybody into the room and you've got to flow that stuff out on a map and say, okay, a why and have that debate of why that information's important and be able to remove multiple clicks. So, and, and I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, Michael, that that ability to be able to do that, to get everybody in the room and hash that out creates greater ownership. And, and of course our end user adoption is positively impacted, right?

05:27                                    That, that, that's exactly right. I mean, you need to, you need to build that ownership. You need to, uh, to get them involved in the, in the, in the system, uh, from the start. Um, you're going to be able to bring on a plain vanilla application that does everything that the organization wants to be able to do that. That's where, uh, the strength of in for EAM is, is it's a powerful tool that's built directly to a specific industry. But then when you start working with the specific company that you're doing, they've got different business rules that are um, that need to be modified. You know, everybody's organization structure is not the same. Their cost code structure's not the same. The information that's most important to them is not necessarily the same. So this is where stratum can come in and help them to configure that front end to meet the needs of the organization above and beyond what the industry, the structure of that

06:25                                    I would imagine. And, and, and you listeners out there, I that is a non negotiable. If you're entering and you're going down the road of implementing a system, uh, you've got to evaluate the system one and say is it flexible, configurable, does it have a good user experience? Those are all key to your business success. And I mean that's, that's a non negotiable. It has to happen that way. Or your or your end users are going to, for lack of a better term, pencil whip data. And it's going to be useless to you if you don't do it upfront. And I would imagine Michael doing it up front, having that pinpoint focus on me and able to lay those processes out, remove, you know, the, the not the inefficiencies [inaudible] vitally from a cost perspective. You don't want to head down that implementation and then you find yourself at the last whatever, 5% and you got to reconfigure, you got to do it up front cost-wise.

07:33                                    But there are some advantages that Infour EAM gives you. They allow you to be able to do some of those configurations at the tail end of the, of the system to be able to uh, yeah, to be able to make it, um, look and feel a little bit different to be able to support these, these, these, these needs. And when we build a system, you know, we focus on getting the system implemented and then we go and we can, we can tweak the, the, the, the look and feel, you know, what, what are the important things that you've run into now that you've actually started demo in the system? We're using the system, um, uh, based on how it's been configured for you as an organization. So we can actually use some of that last mile configuration work towards the end and we interact the customer support group, we do a lot of that even post-implementation to be able to help them to be able to get better adoption if they aren't getting the type of use of the system that they're expecting.

08:35                                    That's pretty doggone powerful. And it, cause I, I've always been of the opinion or I've experienced it, let's just, let's just lay it out there. I've experienced the, the joy of missing something and then try to figure it out at the end of a, of an implementation. It happens. And, and you, what you're telling me the product for EAM has a level of flexibility. How the a configurability capability, there's a lot of abilities in there, um, to be able to sort of minimize or, or, or, you know, sort of work around that if we're, if for any reason you had a situation where it's like, Oh gosh, I forgot.

09:15                                    Yeah, I mean that, yeah, that's, I mean that's the power of, of in for EAM is they give you these configuration tools that are, are built into the product suite so that you can make these configuration changes on the front end and they are fully upgradeable. So when you move from one version to the next version, if you're running in the cloud and they're going to hit you with an upgrade, you're pretty much guaranteed that these configurations that you're putting in there are gonna continue to work and they're going to continue to meet the needs of your, uh, of your end users.

09:50                                    Wow. See that? That's a, that's pretty powerful. So you listeners out there want to make sure paper and pencil, we talk about front end configuration and usability. It is key to end user adoption. Without a doubt. Pinpoint focus on that. I need for you guys to reach out to Michael Schneider if you're just like, Hey, that makes sense to me. Uh, stratum consulting is the company. The system is of course in four. EAM powerful, configurable. And you know what? We're going to be coming back with the, the, the next in this series and we're going to be talking a little bit about backend configurations for one off corporate business rules. Because not every business is the same as all the other businesses. They're going to have some rules that are going to be somewhat different. How do we handle those? Because they are also important. So stay tuned for the next, in the series of how we configure the last mile for end user adoption. So stay tuned. We will be right back.

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