The hardest part of implementing business process management (BPM), ERP or even customer relationship management (CRM) can be training users to do their jobs using the new tool. To trim that learning curve and improve productivity with the new software, some vendors are offering role-based access or persona-based interface design.
This approach gives users a view of only the functions they need to do their job.
"Instead of having access to 20 things, you get access to the two things you really need," said Clay Richardson, a senior analyst at Forrester Research. "You've eliminated waste and bloat."
Vendors like Global360 Inc. and Microsoft have developed versions of their software that allow for role-based access for users. These packages include a number of defined personas, or user types. For instance, Global360's persona-based BPM package includes three major groups of personas: the builder, the end user or participant, and the manager. Companies can then customize persona types based on what the jobs require.
The Microsoft Dynamics line of applications also offers a role-based design, developed after years of research on how users work with their ERP and CRM applications. This type of interface can help increase users' desire to use the software and lead to higher job satisfaction and improved productivity, according to Jakob Nielsen, user experience director for Microsoft Dynamics.
User finds persona-based software improves productivity
The Pinellas County Government offices in Florida are using Global360's Persona-based BPM software, called Case360. It's an Internet-based application written in Java that allows users to create workflow processes and import them into applications using defined personas. The county is using the persona-based interface in a number of areas, including probate, the clerk's accounting office and child support.
The county's IT team decided to upgrade to the persona, or role-based, design of Case360 after using Global360's Execute360 BPM package for imaging workflow and processes for a number of years. The team found that system difficult to distribute because it was thick client-based, with no Web component. There was also a lot of integration needed to have all the applications talking to each other. And in the case of the probate group of 650 employees, "we were looking only at the user requirements of the probate user, not the judge or anyone else," said Michael D. Pereiro, senior programmer for the government offices. "It was a very narrow view."
With the Web-based interface and defined roles in Case360, "we were easily able to extend to other agencies and more easily distribute and share documents," said Pereiro.
The new persona-based BPM application went live in January, after more than a year of surveying users to define personas and understand the new process. Defining the personas can be a long process, but it's the most important, Pereiro said.
"At the probate office, we tried to identify the actors in the day-to-day processing of work," he said. By talking to all types of users -- including managers, business analysts, clerks, judges, etc. -- Pereiro and his team found out what type of information they needed to get their jobs done as they were going through the workflow process.
As for the benefits of using this type of interface, improving worker productivity and creating a paperless office topped the list, according to Pereiro. "From an IT perspective, [using persona-based design] gives us insight into the roles and responsibilities of our users," he said. "It also forces us to ask questions we rely on the business analysts to figure out on how someone's process works and who should be involved." This new type of software design also allowed various agencies within the county, that didn't know everything each other did, to successfully work together.
Persona-based challenge: Fear of change
There were, however, some challenges to adopting this new type of software design at Pinellas County Government. The biggest obstacles were resistance to change and office politics.
"In the initial survey process, there's a sense of uncomfortableness among users because they realize they have to do a self-examination of what exactly they do in their job," said Pereiro. "It's like airing out the closet." People get concerned you're going to tell them how to do their job and others don't like the image you describe of them or the persona you define for them, added Pereiro.
"Some people even think we're trying to automate their job or replace it," said Pereiro. "But instead, we're able to give them more defined capabilities."