Identifying use cases and users

Understanding the unique capabilities of a 360-degree information application is critical to understanding the use cases that an organization can address with such an application. 360-degree applications provide users with a complete view of the data throughout an organization that is relevant to their role in that

organization, regardless of the data repository or format in which that data is stored.

When planning a 360-degree application, the first question to ask is therefore “Who are your users and why do they need a 360-degree view?” The answer to this question typically drives all of the other requirements.

For example, suppose that you are the manager of the call center for a

telecommunication (telecom) company. Your call center representatives need to find product information quickly to reduce the average handling time of calls, and to reduce repeat calls.

What type of information are they typically looking for? They will need specific information about the caller, and will also need information about common troubleshooting activities, different types of phones, the different wireless plans that are available, guidance about buying accessories for their phones, and so on.

All of this information is probably available, though it might be strewn across multiple repositories, and you might even have a distinct repository for each type of data. This is a key point. A 360-degree view does not create data for you, or make you change the existing ways in which that data is collected. Your data already exists in your repositories, and is already collected by your current user workflow.

The challenge is typically that a call center representative might need to click through multiple screens, or even use multiple applications, to find the answer he or she needs. This is because the associated data is scattered across different repositories.

This traditional model, where different applications or application screens are the only way to access different types of data, makes it hard for an agent to quickly locate and go to the information that he or she needs when servicing a customer on the phone.

Customer information (from one repository) would appear beside troubleshooting activities (from a different repository) that the representatives might need to suggest, based on information about the handset that the customer owns (from yet another repository).

If call center representatives are incentivized to up-sell callers, you might also want to display other content, all of which might be stored in other repositories: 򐂰 Suggestions for wireless plan upgrades

򐂰 Information about new service plans that are being promoted 򐂰 Recommendations for complimentary accessory purchases

Figure 4-1 shows a sample application, created using IBM Watson Explorer Application Builder, that consolidates and centralizes relevant information for use when interacting with specific customers.

Figure 4-1 Customer-relevant information in a 360-degree application

As you begin thinking about the information that your users are looking for, you should begin to focus in on who your users are, and what their typical workflows are. Watching your users’ workflows provides additional insights that

If you take what you find by watching user workflows and use those observations to augment what they have told you, you will be well on your way to being able to envision and deliver the 360-degree view that your users need.

As an example, suppose that your sales team is complaining that marketing is taking too long to turn around new market reports. Who are the targeted users of the application: your sales managers or your marketing team? Observing the workflow for creating these reports can identify opportunities for improving their production, actually benefiting both groups.

Suppose that you find that marketing is slow in turning around reports, because they are creating net new knowledge in response to each request, and that they are not capitalizing on existing material because they cannot find it! Your marketing team might not understand how long their research should take if they are used to the way things are.

Worse yet, you learn that they need information from other teams, and that there is no self-service, so they must wait for a colleague to email them material. What if you could make a 360-degree, self-service marketing workspace? By doing so, marketing could turn around reports much faster and positively affect sales. This is a problem you might not have been able to solve by asking. You likely had to witness their workflow to understand the root cause of the issue.

By expanding the context of a 360-degree information application, you can use the same infrastructure to provide a self-service workspace for sales, with a slightly different view than marketing. Your sales team is now happy, because they do not need to constantly email your marketing team to request the reports that they are looking for. Your users turned out to be both teams, each with their own use case and context.

When planning 360-degree applications, you should also think more broadly than just considering internal users. What about your external business partners and suppliers?

For example, IBM worked with a large industrial manufacturer whose major challenge was that their business partners did not have a 360-degree view of the products that they were re-selling. Business partners needed to call into different groups and visit different websites to find the information that they needed to support their own sales cycles.

This type of incremental complexity wastes time, increases business partner frustrations, and hurts sales. A well planned 360-degree information application

The key to understanding the users and use cases that you need to address is by seeing that if you follow the users, you will find the use case. Don't merely ask what they need, but also observe how they work. The goal of a 360-degree application is for a user to visit the application many times throughout the day. By taking the time to observe and ask questions, you will be well on your way to making that vision a reality.

The types of questions you should be answering are ones that historically require multiple systems and significant intuition to connect the information dots

scattered across different silos.