IT User Support: Analysis, Methodology, Definitions

By Bryan - Posted on 27 November 2007

Analysis and Recommendations for Information Technology User Support Provided to a Government Field Office

Chapter 2 Previous Analysis of Field Office User Support

During the five years that the author has been in charge of the IT program for a government field office, a number of formal and informal user surveys have been conducted by various IT groups within the Organization. The intention of the surveys was to identify how IT could provide improved support to the users. In most cases the results from the surveys identified no significant problems in the area of user support or, more disturbingly, the surveys were left unanswered and the results were inconclusive. Current organizational performance measures used by the organization for user support also did not give a true measure of the quality of support being provided to the user. Informal interviews with IT professionals conducted in the past few years by the author have revealed that IT managers have difficulty in identifying the improvements needed for their own user support programs.

There are likely two reasons for why previous surveys and interviews concerning user support did not identify any problems with the user support program. First, those authoring and completing the surveys might not know or understand what their current needs were from the IT user support programs. Users are unable to provide necessary feedback when they are either not informed of their role or do not understand their role in the activity for which participation is sought (Damodaran, 1996). Another reason might be that the questions that were asked in the surveys and interviews were not the correct questions for identifying problems and desired solutions. The following case study by the author illustrates these points.

In 2003, the Central Region Headquarters was in need to replace the field office's aging Windows NT network servers. An advisory team representing the field office IT staff was organized and charged with recommending a new network server for the field office and to define whether there were any organizational requirements for the server. The formation of the "server team" preceded by sending surveys to the field office IT staff. Although the first page of the survey indicated that business needs were a concern, the survey itself did not ask a single question about business needs. The questions in the survey could be summarized down to two issues: what are the current uses for field office servers, and what operating system should the new server use? After the surveys were analyzed by the team and presented to Central Region Headquarters, the conclusions and recommendations that followed were: (a) no organizational requirements for server standardization existed, (b) no recommendation for a server configuration, and (c) that offices should make their own decision with regards to the office server configuration.

The author, concerned about mistakes made by the advisory team in their analysis, submitted a paper to the Central Region Headquarters responding not only to the team's proposal but offered his own analysis and recommendations. Many of the author's findings and recommendations for the network server were later adopted by the Organization. While the team focused on software and hardware requirements, the author focused on the business needs of the field office before recommending a server configuration. Proper systems analysis, requiring an understanding of organizational goals and strategic planning, should have preceded any hardware and software specifications recommended by the advisory team (Turban, McClean, & Wetherbe, 1999, pp. 547-548). The questionnaire contained no questions regarding the field office's current operational, administrative, or research needs, nor did it give any consideration that the server might have a role in the Organization's strategic plans or local operating plans. Lastly, non-IT managers were not asked to provide input into the team's survey. Simply put, the survey the advisory team provided to the field office reflected the server as the end goal and not the means for achieving organizational goals.

The advisory team's oversight in not relating IT systems to business processes is not unique to organizations. A recent article in a magazine publication for IT professionals estimated that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of all projects fail (Zhen, 2005). Three of the five reasons for project failure given by the same article were: the project's real value isn't understood, the true users are not known, and the requirements aren't clearly understood. IT managers often fail to improve their user support programs not because of lack of analysis, but by neglecting to remember that system analysis requires more than surveys and interviews. Organizations need to take a step back and consider improving the methodology they are using for analyzing the problems in their user support programs.

Methodology Utilized for this Report

With the focus on improving user support, this professional report examines methodologies that field offices have not considered, in practice at least, in their analysis to improve services. At issue with the Organization's current system analysis is that both the user and the organization have not done well in identifying the intended performance desired from the field office user support program. The framework provided by K. Kendall and J. Kendall for conceptualizing problem solving is utilized as the basis of this report's methodology:

One way of conceptualizing what problems are and how they arise is to think of them as situations where goals have never been met or are no longer being met. Useful feedback gives information about the gap between actual and intended performance. In this way feedback spotlights problems. (2002, p. 56)

This professional report will look at the information systems involved in user support functions such as those found in the field office. Preceding the analysis of information systems, the terms "user" and "user support" are defined both in the context of the Organization and in the context of how they should be defined by the Organization. Sources of reference for the analysis will include available literature and examples provided by the author's professional experience.

A comparison will then be made between the physical processes involved in the ideal information systems for user support with those information systems currently being utilized by the organization. The ideal information system for the organization will be determined by a review of the literature and an analysis of goals for providing user support. By comparing the actual information systems being utilized by the field office and the ideal, the possible gaps can be better identified and needed solutions can be recommended.

Definition of User Support and the User

It is unlikely to find a single person in any modern office that could not be considered a user of IT. Most organizations provide their employees some level of support for IT systems, but the scope and methods used to provide that support vary from one organization to another. In the Emergency Field Office, some of the following tasks are considered user support functions:

Provide application program support to users by performing installation, configuration, and software maintenance of existing application programs.
Provide users software technical support and troubleshoot application program problems.
Develop documentation for all new and modified software programs.
Conduct user training and develop user documentation for application and system operating manuals.
Administer software licensing and user security software such as virus checkers and network scanning software.

Most of the tasks listed as functions for user support by the Organization can be separated into two categories: (a) information technology system changes for the user, and
(b) information technology documentation for the user. While the Organization defines what is involved in the IT user support program, the level of support and the methods to be utilized are less clear. In many ways the intensity and type of support provided will vary depending on the needs of the user. With the goals for a user support program dependent on the user of IT, how an organization defines or should define the term "information technology user" is important to consider. Without knowing the user, an organization will likely lack a clear understanding of the necessary requirements for providing high-quality user support at the field office.

The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) defines an information technology user as "not directly involved in developing, delivering, or supporting IT systems and services as is characteristic of positions covered by" standards for IT professionals (Office of Personnel Management, 2003, p. 18). The IT user, according to the federal agency, uses IT systems "as a tool that enhances the accomplishment of the assignment where the assignment itself is the work product or service." Examples of IT tools would include word processing programs, spreadsheets and databases, and graphic intensive publications. Most organizations define their IT users similar to the OPM's conventional definition.

The author suggests that OPM's conventional definition of an IT user is inadequate for organizations that provide highly scientific and technological services such as those provided by Emergency Field Offices. In the author's field office, about a third of the operational employees are not only end-users of the technology, but also have some involvement in either developing or maintaining IT systems. These IT users have developed software applications distributed through the Organization, have participated in the development of new IT projects, and provided specialized IT training to other field offices. The IT tasks performed by these types of users are considered by the Organization as part of quality assurance, professional development, or "extra duties". The lack of recognition of the contributions users are making toward IT tasks may make it difficult for the Organization to determine the type of support users need from their IT staff.

The need for users to provide input into the development and implementation of information systems and information technologies has been known for some time. Many organizations recognize that a major factor contributing to the failure of IT to reach expected project goals is the lack of user involvement (Damodaran, 1996). Further, in order for information systems to adequately reflect real human and organizational needs, infrastructure must be provided to support user involvement during the development of the system. User involvement in system design is sometimes called "participatory design" (Damodaran, 1996) or "user-centered systems design" (Gulliksen et. al, 2003). Over the past 20 years, the author's organization has relied heavily on participatory design approaches for the development of information systems. A specific example of how participatory design benefits the organization and alters the role of the user is presented next.

In the late 1990s the Organization began using rapid application development (RAD) for designing and implementing a new forecast processing system. The specific software development methodology utilized is called Extreme Programming. Extreme Programming requires constant communication and involvement with the user in order to provide quicker software releases and shorten application development time (Hansen, 2003). As users became more involved in the software development of IT systems, software development cycles within the Organization decreased from a span of 6 to 12 months down to a span of 6 to 8 weeks (LeFebvre, Mathewson, & Hansen, 2003). Having the users involved in the development process assisted the Organization in meeting key strategic milestones that managers had previously thought were unattainable.

The participatory design approach not only changes the software design process but, as the author has observed, the user-centric approach has also changed the culture of the IT users within the Organization. For many users involved with participatory design, their IT skills have increased beyond what is expected from the conventional user of IT. Users, utilizing their new skill set, have not only been asked to identify software deficiencies, but have offered fixes and enhancements to the software code (LeFebvre et al., 2003). The users in many of the IT projects within the Organization are seen by the programmers not as clients but as partners in the development of IT.

When employees are not only users of IT, but are also active participants in the development and deployment of IT, dramatic changes to user support must be considered. In this case, there is a greater need to provide two-way communication in the user support system. An organization not only needs to have the necessary infrastructure in place to assist users, but also must have infrastructure that allows the users to assist the organization in fulfilling its IT needs. It is the author's observation that most organizations address the communication needs for user support from organization to the user, but rarely addresses the infrastructure needed to enable support from the user back to the organization.