When the domain experts (who will use the software) understand the software logic and are involved in its development

A critical problem with software implementations is lack of “engagement” from the people who are going to use it.

The term “engagement” might be accurate (ie to say, they aren’t interested) but misses a great deal.

From our experience working with the Aberdeen oil and gas industry, it seems more accurate to say, many professionals would rather pull all of their teeth out than have a discussion about software. They hate software, they hate their company IT department, they hate software companies and their stupid promises, they hate software which tells them what they can and can’t do, or software which tries to get them to ‘comply’ with something someone else decided.

Often – or perhaps usually – they don’t understand what the software is telling them, or why it says what it says.

It makes them feel devalued as a human being, spending their days trying to work out how to get on with sofware rather than actually doing what they were trained to do and want to do.

Once they’ve figured out how to use a software package, even if it took them months, then they really really don’t want anyone to take it away from them and start trying to get them to do something else.

So we get a situation where, yes, users are not very engaged with software development.

how do we fix this?

 

 


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