For CIOs, demand is usually the beginning of a job. For example, if an enterprise wants to go to an enterprise management software project or upgrade its operating system, no matter which information project it is, demand research is necessary and crucial.
Taking the most popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) system project as an example, the role of demand research is the most critical. Demand research plays a decisive role in the selection of early system, the implementation of later project and the evaluation of final project. However, it is easier said than done, especially for most CIOs, who are from technical backgrounds and have little experience in enterprise informatization research. How to do the first lesson of information management demand investigation?
Personally, I think it is not so difficult to do a good job in demand research. "Demand begins with complaints". Listening carefully to users' ideas is a good way to grasp employees' needs.
The pursuit of perfection is our persistent goal, but it will never be perfect. The same is true of enterprise information management system, which is more or less unsatisfactory. As chief information officers, we should try our best to listen to these complaints, because this is also where we have not done enough work and what we will strive for in the future.
For example, when I have dinner with employees, employees sometimes complain to me that the reports they export from the system cannot be used directly and need to be modified. For example, the purchase orders exported by financial personnel from ERP system have no corresponding purchase price, which makes them very troublesome in reconciliation, and they have to query the corresponding purchase orders every time, which makes their efficiency not improved at all. Another example is that the purchasing department complains that there is a time error in the system in inventory. When they place purchase orders, sometimes the inventory quantity of materials is not very accurate, which affects the accuracy of their purchase orders. Later, after investigation, it was found that some departments did not review the relevant documents in time, which led to poor timeliness of inventory, and so on.
As long as you understand with your heart, you will hear similar complaints. The heads of IT departments in some enterprises are afraid to hear these complaints, and think that these complaints are accusations against their work. Therefore, they are either above the front-line employees and users and out of touch with them, or blindly accuse users of not having a good operating system when users ask questions. Time and time again, no employee will complain to the CIO. Although it seems that everyone here is calm, problems will accumulate and volcanoes will erupt sooner or later. And when that day comes, it will be too late for us to regret it.
Therefore, as CIOs, we should be able to open our hearts and listen to users' complaints about our work. Didn't the famous great man say, "If you have something, change it, and if you don't have it, encourage it"?