Training is often cited as one of the critical factors for business benefit realisation post implementation. But how do companies establish the success of their training initiative? By success I am referring to the fact that knowledge transfer has taken place, and that end-users are correctly using the system.
Often after go-live the help desk or IT support is inundated with end-user calls questioning which Tcode to use, or why the system is not responding to XX command, or why the transaction screen has gone grey and they can’t enter data and various other issues. Most often analysing help desk calls is the only way to track and trace issues end-users are experiencing. This is certainly a valid approach and works well to a point but it takes time and can be a costly exercise to exactly pin-point the problem. As Drucker said, ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
The SAP User Experience Management (UEM) Software created by Knoa is designed to help the performance of SAP applications and of the people who use them. I recently attended a presentation at the SAP offices outlining the benefits and value of using the UEM software. Jesse Bernal who is a Snr Solution Engineer at Knoa is certainly passionate about the product and what it can do!! Jesse originally worked for Johns Manville, a building industry company in Denver Colorado which implemented UEM software to 2000 SAP software users.
The company’s main objectives behind the implementation were to: increase employee productivity and satisfaction; improve IT response to potential end-user errors before they are reported; install a solution that would immediately notify IT as errors occur in order to proactively correct them before they impact operations; and better understand and address performance issues.
The top benefits they found were:
- 17% increase in user satisfaction and improved productivity through accurately assessing and targeting training requirements;
- 27% decrease in user errors; and
- 100% reduction in system errors by pinpointing network performance issues.
Amongst other things UEM software provides a comprehensive workflow monitoring approach to enable drill-down to data on specific user interactions within SAP systems. For example, which fields and buttons were used, when and what was the system response.
One critical factor to the success of the uptake of this software solution is the identification of the end-users. Apparently in Germany this functionality has been disabled. The fact that individual end-users are being monitored is likely to leave them feeling threatened and vulnerable. To overcome this issue policies and procedures should be established which outline how interactions with users should be conducted. One way to establish user involvement and buy-in is to ensure end-users are part of the process to establish such policies and procedures. If UEM solutions are going to be fully utilised and adopted then the establishment of accepted policies and procedures which are viewed as supportive are critical to their success.
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