Updated Support Processes

Challenge
To gain an understanding of how to meet users’ needs

Research
Spoke with support staff, sat in on incoming calls, and provided a method of collecting a database of regularly occurring issues

Result
Lack of inputed data to give a good understanding of specific areas to focus on in the application

Research

Upon starting at Berla, I needed to gain an understanding of how to meet users’ needs, but I wasn’t able to speak with end-users because of the critical nature of law enforcement and military operations. Thus, I began by reaching out to support staff. By speaking with them and sitting in on many support calls, I learned that Berla lacked both a method of data collection and a system for knowledge-sharing among departments.

Because I needed data about where users were struggling most, I came up with additional inputs for the Salesforce-integrated phone system. By adding these drop-down menus support staff were able to categorize these issues, and I could create reports summarizing the collected data.

Result

What I learned only several months after implementing this system is that only some of the support staff were using it. Were I to go back, I would implement multiple routine meetings to go over what was learned, check in on how it was going, and talk about possible improvements. While we certainly needed a system for collecting data, I failed to see in a more timely manner that this system required ongoing reinforcement and modifications. I now better understand the saying “culture eats change for lunch.”

While there were some useful secondary insights gained around frequently asked questions and hardware issues which support staff could use, the main learning for all of us was that when business processes are implemented, they require ongoing communication and full buy-in from everyone involved.

Mockups

Implemented an Agile framework

As a designer familiar with leveraging Agile methods to improve the quality of work, increase team cohesion, and deliver better estimates on the effort around design and development work, I was surprised at the lack of leveraging these principles in my initial time at Berla.

My posture as a designer is compromised when there are gaps in understanding technical feasibility of features and processes. For Berla’s iVe application, this gap was also present throughout the development process. To remedy this, I suggested to the lead developer and team, the introduction of a few Agile principles, primarily around customer definition and the team’s working agreement.

We started by defining our customers, then moved to addressing team responsibilities, roles, and the definition of work. This led to using scrum-based stand-ups, leveraging sprint planning, and implementing retrospectives. From the product management side, we implemented a backlog management process and a labelling system in Jira. We also practiced writing user stories. While slowing down to address our gaps was a rough ride for a while, I continued to evangelize to management the need for us to do this, in order to improve our capacity in addressing customer feedback and business needs.

As a result of implementing these Agile methods, our product development and delivery improved. Management is better able to gauge major releases and better able to handle customer feedback.

Design both Mobile and Desktop applications