Exco Partners are proud to announce our partnership with OnePlan. This means Microsoft’s Global Partner of the Year for Project and Portfolio Management is now available and supported in Australia. 

Microsoft selects OnePlan as their Global “Partner of the Year” for 2021

OnePlan is thrilled to be named the ‘Microsoft Partner of the Year” for project and Portfolio Management for 2021. The OnePlan team previously won this award in 2019 and was a finalist in 2020. 

This partnership further supports the Exco Partners strategy to enable our customers to increase their business agility and delivery effectiveness. We are excited for our customers and the uptick in capability the OnePlan solution will provide. 

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Through this partnership, our Australian customers now have access to an incredibly feature-rich, Microsoft-based PPM solution that is integrated directly into their Microsoft 365 environment.  The solution supports customers in agile, traditional, and hybrid work environments, integrates with a range of toolsets including Azure Dev Ops and JIRA, and uses a fused user experience to empower teams in their own working environment. 

Contact us for a demonstration or to find out more about how we can help you.

Microsoft Global PPM Partner of the Year – OnePlan now in Australia

We are extremely excited to announce we have been recognised in the CRN Fast 50 for 2021. In the number 2 spot mind you!

This is a huge pat on the back to the incredible team at Exco Partners and the amazing work they have done throughout some of the most challenging times.

CRN Fast 50

As the glorious year that was 2020 nears an end, I thought it was an opportune time to share some tips on what I have learned over the last 12 or so months of running co-design workshops and meetings remotely. While most of us miss human connection and look forward to getting back to normal (who are we kidding, Service Designers are people people after all), it’s very likely the workplace will never be the same and so I like to think these tips will be relevant for some time yet.

. This isn’t a list a list of tips on how to run a co-design workshop; it assumes you already know how to do this. Instead it focusses on the nuances of online facilitation and how to design and deliver your workshops in way that keeps people energised and engaged.  Co-design workshops work best when people are involved and contributing. In fact, by definition, if people are not contributing and or participating, it’s probably not co-design.

By now you’ve probably realised how mentally exhausting video meetings are and there’s a scientific reason for this. I like to compare what’s happening here with what happens when you try to read while someone else is driving; your body senses conflicting messages of motion between what you are seeing (static words) and what your inner-ear is detecting (motion). The dissonance between the two realities causes motion sickness. In a similar way (asterisk, not a doctor), in remote meetings, we can sit motionless for up to 8 hours on a video call while our brains are pushed to remain active and alert – “How do I look? Was that directed at me? My parcel should be arriving any minute now.” It’s exhausting.

You might be thinking “so what?” As a starting point, it is important to acknowledge that 

virtual meetings are not that same as physical meetings

. If we don’t face into this fact, if we don’t design for it and cater to it, we risk not reaching our objectives and wasting everyone’s time, including our own. Exhaustion and video fatigue can impact: 

So, knowing all of this, how do we plan and deliver our workshops to 

ensure our participants are energised, engaged and actively participating?

The following ten tips try to address some of these challenges for now and far into the future as we begin to return to a larger proposition of physical meetings. They have been compiled from years of facilitating and running workshops and have been particularly honed in the last 12 months.

Tip #1 Does this have to be a 3 hour workshop?

This one obviously applies to virtual and physical meetings. How many times have you been asked to attend a meeting where you left going “that could have been resolved in an email.”

This starts with having empathy for your potential participants and considering the challenges they may be working through, such as having to sit in front of their computer for hours at a time or managing conflicting priorities. 

It also requires you to challenge and be honest with yourself. Look at your objectives and ask yourself, is there another way to do this? Can this be resolved in an email or can it wait? Is this just work to keep me busy? To do this, you really need to be clear on 1. what your objectives are and 2. the impact they have on other decisions. 

If you do however come to the conclusion that is does need to be a workshop, consider the next tip.

Tip #2 Don’t try to replicate what has worked in the past

I learned early on that one of my go-to workshop structures of splitting people into groups, getting them to work through something and bringing them back to a group, just didn’t translate well to the virtual world (especially before the concept of breakout rooms existed) for the reasons stated above. Through working with different clients ranging from NGOs, NFPs and big corporations over the last 6 months, some things I have learned from adapting your agenda include:

Tip #3 Set pre-work, not just pre-reading

Image of an email icon with an activity sheet

Given the shorter timeframe for workshops, it is important that your participants really understand the context of what is happening and why, and are fully prepared to get the most out of the meeting. A really simple yet powerful way to encourage this is to set pre-work rather than just pre-reading for your workshops.

The pre-work doesn’t need to be difficult or particularly time-consuming and should be very targeted in its purpose.

As an example, in a recent workshop I facilitated, our objective was to explore and design a new banking experience for business customers. In order to be fully prepared for the workshop, it was critical that all participants understood the current experience. To achieve this, we prepared a pre-work pack that set up the context, set out what to expect from the workshop and also gave the participants a small worksheet/activity that they needed to fill in before the meeting. The worksheet simply asked them several questions that required them to do some basic research, about 20 minutes worth, across the current banking experience. 

So don’t be afraid to set homework. At times it can be just as important as the workshop itself, particularly if the people participating are critical to the outcomes of the workshop and in these cases, they typically understand it is part of doing their job.

Imagine this: if I invited you to a movie theatre and sat you down and gave you pop-corn, what do you think your job is for the next two hours? Most people would say, “to watch a movie”.

Similarly, if I were to take you to a tennis court, gave you a tennis racquet, runners and some tennis balls, what do you think your role would be? Well, “play tennis” of course.

The same goes if I invite you to a workshop and didn’t tell you anything about the meeting, expecting you to just turn-up. What would your role would be? For many, it could easily be expected that your role is that of an observer or passive participant.

If you are running a co-design workshop where you require something from the participants (input, opinion, decision, money etc.) it is critical that you make that clear to them. If you don’t do that, they will quite reasonably assume their role is passive and you will lose their engagement. In context of a remote workshop, their passive engagement will take up a valuable box on the screen that might have otherwise been used by someone else.

When it comes to assigning the roles, remember that assigning/communicating roles to the facilitators is equally important as the participants. In my experience, I have found it ideal to have two facilitators, particularly when there are more than 15 people. If in doubt, use the same rule our education system uses; 1 educator for every 10 kids. Don’t forget tip #2 though and try to have fewer people.

 A co-facilitator can help to read the participants engagement when you are speaking and can help to avoid the awkward silences that can be misinterpreted in remote/video meetings. You should also choose a co-facilitator that complements your skills, persona and tone rather than being too similar to yourself. A good-cop bad-cop routine often works well. As an example, I often like to be outcomes-focused while my co-facilitator can take more of a nurturing and encouraging role to foster conversation. 

My next tip is to try something new! There are so many great tools available now for virtual collaboration. Some tools where I have had great success with include:

There are lots of others out there, just make sure your participants have access to them and know how to use them. Tip #3 is a great starting point for this.

What I mean by this tip is, when planning for workshop, consider your role as a facilitator in context of being a DJ. Think about what acts were before you and who is playing after you. Consider what time during the day you are playing and what time you will finish.

To a DJ, this information is important because it allows them to adjust their performance in the context of everything else that has happened and will happen. They try to anticipate the mood of the crowd and play to that.

Similarly, consider your audience. Consider if they have just come from a three hour workshop or have a long meeting after your meeting, how would they be feeling? Are you going to get the best out of them? Be conscious of the timing, either in the day, week, month or year. It might be end-of-financial year for example, where your participants may be deeply mentally invested in other work and so might not give your workshop the attention you expect or need.

Within the context of a day, I like to break things up as shown in the diagram below:

The period from 10am to 2pm is the optimal time for learning something new. As your body wakes from sleep, it continues to ‘warm-up’ throughout the day, peaking around midday. At this time, your working memory, alertness and ability concentrate peaks. This is the best time to present new information, discuss concepts and make decisions.

Now, if your objective is creativity, problem-solving or brain-storming, the period from 1pm to 3pm is better. It might sound counter-intuitive as everyone knows during this time we feel a bit more tired and perhaps lazy, but it is this naturally lazy state that encourages us to find short-cuts or simplify work, great for process improvement and simplification conversations.

From 3pm onwards, this time is often associated with reductions in will-power in a work context. I tend not to run workshops in this time as people are tired and distracted with other things such as school pick up. What I do use this time for as will-power is lower, is to ask for things 😉

The above is what I go by from experience but you can read more 

Tip #7 Be a DJ… again – regulate the room’s energy

Great DJs or musicians do one thing really well; they manage and regulate people’s energy through their performance. If you are at a club or concert and the DJ plays hit after hit, by song five, you’re probably drained.

What a good DJ will do is push and pull or ebb and flow the energy throughout the performance. They will push energy by playing a popular song or two that will get the punters going and then they will pull back with something less famous that gives people time to discover new content and also recuperate their energy before the next big hit.

In a similar way, when running a workshop you should consider the same with regard to managing people’s energy. Particularly if it is a 3+ hour workshop, you don’t want to be pushing constantly for more action or more input. Instead use breaks and smaller tasks to regulate the energy flow. This gives them time to contribute, digest and rest before contributing more.

This is a really important one for me personally. I tend to talk fast and have lots of energy and this tip is a good reminder that I shouldn’t expect the same from everyone. 

Tip #8 Role play; not as awkward as you might think!

This one is a bit of a play on Tip #2 (don’t replicate what has worked in the past.) That is, I find role play exercises in real life a quite awkward. Participants tend to stand around feeling uncomfortable. They don’t know what to do with their hands, they are trying their best acting skills while everyone one is watching and are so self-conscious; it’s just awkward.

Surprisingly however, in contrast, I have found role play in a virtual workshop to work very well. My hypothesis of why this works well is people feel like they can hide their awkwardness better. They are often off screen when it’s not their turn to talk, the glare of people watching isn’t so real, they don’t need to worry about where to put their hands and the safety of the ‘turn-off-video’ button is only a click away.

Role play is a really powerful co-design tool as it creates empathy for the end users and helps to quickly highlight parts of a process that don’t work, don’t make sense or can obviously be better.

The video above introduces this tip in a fun way and is a reminder that communication is not always as straight forward as you might think.

When my partner was studying his Certificate in Education Support, he would tell me that core to their course was understanding the importance of catering for multiple learning styles and communication styles. Different learning styles can be grouped into visual, auditory, reading & writing and kinaesthetic. 

In a similar way, when preparing your workshops, consider different ways to diversify how you communicate with your participants and how you want them to contribute. This will keep people alert and engaged and it will help with regulating energy as discussed in Tip #7. It will also ensure you are catering for different learning preferences and make your content more accessible.

Tip #10 Create empathy, including for yourself!

This tip is to remind you to look after yourself. It is much easier to build rapport with others when you are running a workshop in person than online where you’re sitting behind a glass wall and feel removed from them.

A simple technique I use to create empathy for myself as a facility/designer, is to crank up the storytelling aspects of my style and to add more personal anecdotes into my delivery. This is particularly useful when running a workshop where you are not quite so familiar with the participants or if you need to ask something of your participants.

I found an interesting case for the importance of building rapport and empathy in 

 at a hospital. Here it was found that medical practitioners who had better rapport and empathy for their patients (and vice versa) tended to have better impacts on their patient’s health and recovery. The reason for this is that the patients tended to feel more accountable to the care being given and therefore had better adherence to treatment recommendations e.g. taking their medicine or doing their rehabilitation exercises as prescribed.

We talk a lot in design about building empathy for the customer or end-user but the same goes when we are facilitating. If you want buy-in, a decision, an outcome or a contribution from your workshop participants, you will have a much better chance if you have built rapport and empathy with them.

So to recap, I have pulled these ten tips together during the challenges we have faced as designers and facilitators throughout COVID lockdowns of 2020. While many of these tips relate to the contrast between video and physical meetings, I hope you will find them valuable well into the future.

10 tips on how to deliver an engaging remote workshop

We are thrilled to be recognised as an ABA100 Winner for Digital Customer Experience Management in The Australian Business Awards 2021 for our work with the National Centre for Farmer Health. The NCFH has made an enormous contribution to support the health, well-being, and safety of farming and regional communities throughout Australia. We were privileged to have had the opportunity to work with the NCFH to expand their reach through the digital experiences we have created. The Exco Partners Experience + Design team live for creating great digital experiences, and we are very proud to be recognised for our work on such an important initiative.

In addition to Digital Customer Experience Management, we have also been recognised as the ABA100 Winner for Community Contribution in The Australian Business Awards 2021. This award, in particular, is a testament to the incredible service the NCFH provides to Australian farming and regional communities.

Learn more about the amazing from  the National Centre for Farmer Health here: 

Digital Customer Experience Design and Community Contribution Winner 2021

With Major Road Projects Victoria, we are delighted to announce that we have been nominated as finalists in the Project Controls Expo Awards 2021

The objective of the project was to establish a Project Management Framework that would enable a clear delivery approach for all road projects and would be embraced by future MRPV Project teams. The framework was expected to guide future projects in the common application of lifecycle stages, approval gates, process within each phase, key reporting milestones and domain-specific guidance and templates (such as safety, engineering, planning, procurement, controls, etc).

Project Controls Exco Awards 2021 Finalist

 article back in 2019. Given some recent conversations, we thought it may be interesting to do an update. It became even more interesting to see how little things have changed…

Before you think about upgrading or implementing a Project, Portfolio Management solution (PPM) here are six key questions that will help you plan for success.

The introduction of a new or upgraded solution into an organisation can be a great experience or it can be a stressful experience. It can succeed in delivering the intended benefits or it can fail dismally. Often failures are a result of focusing too much on tool selection and functionality, not enough on the impact a new toolset will have on the people who will be expected to use it. Before embarking on a PPM journey have a go at answering the questions below to see if your organisation is ready.

Is the Value Proposition clearly understood, regardless of which PPM is selected?

 The implementation of a PPM solution is typically triggered by a need to fix a problem or exploit an opportunity. Either way, there will be a range of people performing a range of roles that will need to engage with the solution. For some, there will be significant benefits while for others there may be a negative impact. By understanding the value proposition the solution offers each group, the value proposition can be more clearly articulated as stakeholders are engaged. Clearly articulated value propositions will often pave the way for future success and uptake.

Has the future Operating Model been defined and is it understood?

 The future operating model should define in some detail, how the organisation wants to work to deliver change. This may be referred to as the future ways of working. The future operating model may be described in service models and process flows or may be defined in a “playbook”.  As a minimum it should consider if:

The PPM solution should be selected for its ability to “enable” the proposed way of working.

Have you considered the support of a champion?

  A champion who is well respected across the organisation and is prepared to be visible in their support for the implementation can help provide significant momentum for the implementation of a PPM solution and the associated embedding of the ways of working.  This is especially true if the person is a change agent who is able to listen to and address the concerns of others.

Way of Working and Toolset in Parallel or separate?

 The PPM solution is only ever an enabler of the way of working. To be effective there must be a clear way of working and the solution must be implemented in a way that supports it. An implementation plan may introduce both the way of working and the solution at the same time, or it may be sequenced one before the other. Different approaches work in different situations. It is important to think through what approach is right for your situation. 

Managing Change and Embedding New Usage Patterns …. can be difficult.

 It is not just a matter of providing training and a few communications. Change starts early and starts with listening. It requires a respectful plan to win the hearts and minds of a range of people, some of whose jobs may be made more difficult by the implementation of the solution.  Does your organisation have a strong history of managing change? Is there a clear approach and a plan for introducing the change successfully and making it stick?

 They say the day of the solution going live should be the worst day of its life. From that point, the owner of the solution will need to manage ongoing change and improvement to continue to adjust the solution to meet the changing needs of the organisation. The owner will need to continue to work closely with various groups to ensure the going in value proposition is delivered and there is a plan for improvements into the future. People will come and go and need to be added and trained, new ideas and projects will need to be added to the system and finished projects closed. Has someone been identified as the ongoing operational owner for the solution, and do they have a plan for doing so? 

Exploring the above six questions and knowing the answers to them before starting the PPM journey will ensure the implementation has a higher chance of success and will provide the background to support an appropriate solution selection process.

Exco Partners is a trusted PPM Partner and implementer for a number of different solutions. We are also a Microsoft Gold Partner for Project, Portfolio Management.

If you have any questions about implementing a PPM Solution, please give us a call.

Before a PPM

Are we spending our Business Intelligence and Analytics Budget where it matters most? The gap between the haves and have-nots only seems to be widening. While a lot of progress has been made, many organisations rush to adopt the latest technology without laying appropriate foundations. Others spend so much time laying the foundations that they lose momentum.

It is not through a lack of spending. Analytics has never had as much C-Level “support” as it does today. But is this investment providing the return on investment expected?

I have spent a lot of time leading analytics, business intelligence and visualization projects (and working with vendors). As is often the case, the rush to deploy the latest technology only results in the true benefits being overlooked. I have seen many organisations simply convert spreadsheets to “shiny” dashboards with limited value added (99.999% replication of the spreadsheet).

Shouldn’t we hold our data and analytics investments up to the same standard that we apply to other parts of the business? Of course, we should. Let’s face it, the outputs and deliverables from analytics projects often face the same challenges that other projects encounter. We ship a dashboard into production but don’t follow up to make sure it is used, that it is used as intended and if there is opportunity to improve the business outcome with just a few small tweaks.

The problem likely has nothing to do with the technology. So, what can you do? Benchmarking is popular. There is no shortage of maturity models from consulting firms. The most famous being the Gartner Analytics Maturity Model. Thomas Davenport has established the DELTA model. There are many other variations and extensions to these models and many have common elements.

Gartner’s early analytics model (they have iterated on this a few times now) focuses primarily on an organisations ability to progress through levels of technical competency to achieve increasing value). 

 model is more wholistic and focused on aspects of an organisations ability to execute (across Data, Enterprise, Leadership, Target and Analyst). Another lens to consider is your organisation’s ability to manage a portfolio of analytics projects and measuring the organisation’s ability to capture value from these investments.

I would argue that on almost any maturity model it would be best to build confidence in your ability to capture value from your analytics investment than to prematurely move to the next level (being able to solve a problem with analytics is not the same as enabling the business to benefit from that knowledge). Being able to demonstrate the link between analytics investments and business outcomes is essential to convince stakeholders to give you permission to solve the organisations most valuable problems. It will also enable you to establish the capability to embed more advanced capabilities into business systems and processes, compounding your investment.

Does your analytics team know how to make good investments? Are they able to effectively manage a portfolio of initiatives that are aligned to business strategy? Can they demonstrate that their investments provide an ROI and do the business stakeholders agree with this assertion?

Business analytics, a waste of money

Join us on a webinar, presented by Tjon Kim our resident project and portfolio tooling guru, to learn about Microsoft’s new Project Accelerator tool which delivers some impressive out of the box improvements to Microsoft Project for the Web and fills some of the white space left behind from Microsoft Project Online.

Project for the Web with Microsoft’s Project Accelerator

If you have started looking at Project for the Web as Microsoft’s latest Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Toolset and have found yourself confused, you are not alone! We are currently fielding lots of questions and there is a huge amount of chatter online. We thought we would share 3 questions that we most are most commonly asked.  

Does Project for the Web integrate with Project

. Whilst Project for the Web does allow importing from a Microsoft Project Professional /Project Desktop (MPP) file, it is a once off import and doesn’t support ongoing synchronisation.  

If you would like the integration feature (as many of us do!), then you can vote for Microsoft to prioritise it in their future feature enhancements.  

How do I navigate to Project for the Web? 

If you have ever used Project Online, you would be familiar with the Project app that shows up in the Office 365 app launcher: 

How many of you tried clicking that app to get to Project for the Web? It does not take you there! That link actually takes you to the 

, which is a great way for seeing all Projects you are involved in. It does not matter whether they are Project for the Web Projects, or Project Online Projects. More information about this 

Steps to navigate to Project for the web:  

Once you have done this, it is best to save the page as a favourite in your browser for easy access in the future.  

The answer to this is yes and no. Whilst the out of the box Project for the Web looks skinny and focussed on the scheduling engine, Microsoft have configured tables and views in the background! (Projects, Programs, Project Request, Risks, Issues, Changes, Status Comments, just to name a few). To make them visible (plus get more functionality), Microsoft have released a 

 which helps set up the User Interface with access to these features. You can read about the Project Accelerator 

Want to know more about how you can fast track Project for the Web with Microsoft’s Project Accelerator?  

 on the 20th of May 2021.   Can’t wait, or you missed the webinar? Feel free to contact us here: 

3 things to know – Project for the Web

Get to know about your workshop participants as much as you can. Be open with the limitation of your expertise in theirs. Remember that you are there to facilitate and not to know everything. Assigning participant personas is a good way to connect you with them and help you deliver something that they are likely to feel comfortable with.

Know intimately what the workshop is for, make sure that you simplify it to a couple of main objectives. Deliver to those objectives. Continue to remind your audience of the objectives to keep the workshop focused. Be mindful not over-reach and stray too far from the stated objective.

Take the time to organise your workshop into logical sections. Write out your agenda and allocate time for each section. Your estimate on how much time to allocate will improve with practice and experience. Plan each section with relevant materials, methods, and the roles for each participant. People will engage and contribute more in a well-structured meeting where they can easily understand their role.

It has become more common for participants to join a workshop via audio and video channels. Prepare for this and make sure that they can still participate in workshop activities in a reliable fashion. Start early to test any communication channels prior to your workshop. Your participants’ time is valuable and spending time watching you resolve technology issues is not a good use of their time.

Make sure that you have your ‘A Team’ with you. Allocate duties so you can focus on the important aspects of facilitation and participant engagement. Consider allocating someone to scribe and keep time so you can focus on the participants. Practice with your together and discuss your roles.

You would be right in thinking that there is certain aspect of showmanship in facilitating a workshop. So, it is important for you to develop your own style. Most importantly though, practice, practice and practice.

5 steps to confident workshop facilitation

In our work at Exco Partners, learning is always an important component that we consider in the solutions we deliver. Learning helps to ensures the change is accepted and importantly reinforces the stickiness of the change, making it become the 

 status-quo. This short article is a reflection on the traditional methods for learning and presents our research in new ways of learning that we believe can make a significant improvement to how change and learning development programs in a business context can be developed.

Before we get much further – let’s start with a definition of learning:

“Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” by Peter C. Brown Hendry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel

And now let’s do a test … “What?!” I hear you mutter.  “I haven’t learnt anything yet!  What are you testing me on?!”

I understand, but it will ultimately make sense.

1. The best way to learn from printed text is to:

A. Read, highlight key points and re-read.

C. Ask questions before you read then read and re-test yourself.

2. Intellectual ability is hard-wired from birth:

3. Which of the following are true (you can choose several):

A. When you find learning more difficult the information is soon lost and must be re-learned.

B. When you can move easier and faster through material you are learning it more fully because your mind is more open.

C. When you find learning more difficult the information is more durable.

A. Ineffective as it doesn’t place you under pressure which is necessary to focus your attention for effective learning.

B. Helpful to ensure that learning has been absorbed.

5. The most effective way to learn a new skill is to:

B. Determine your current level of expertise, focus on areas of low performance then follow-up testing.

C. Pay the most money you can for the best coach you can get.

Record your answers so you can reflect on the results at the end.

There is a current trend towards “lifelong learning” and “growth mindsets” however many of us are unaware that a lot of what we were taught at school about 

 is now out-of-date and no longer serves us well.

One example of where learning is misunderstood is in the area of repetition – many of us spend countless hours in our schooling years, reviewing, revising and highlighting blocks of text. Current evidence shows that simple repetition is a poor mechanism for learning.  In fact one of the major keys to successful learning is retrieval – rather than repeatedly reading or reviewing the same material in an effort to force your memory to absorb the information instead look to build retrieval mechanisms from the beginning.

Despite how non-intuitive it sounds the best way to start learning is by asking questions before you start.  This primes your mind to look for answers to your questions.

Then keep practicing retrieving information and when you do so try to space apart that retrieval so that a little forgetting occurs.  Remember that memory is key to learning and the real test of whether you have remembered something is to be able to retrieve it when you need to.

The most effective method for testing is referred to as “Dynamic Testing” which involves:

This approach specifically focuses on what you are lacking rather than repeating what you already know.

Another misconception concerns learning styles.  There is no evidence to support the contention that some people learn better from visual cues and others from (say) auditory cues.  No evidence.  None. 

Instead focus on another counter-intuitive recommendation which is to mix up your practice.  Try interleaving your learning by practicing two or more subjects or skills and rather than trying to get perfect one thing instead try switching before you have fully mastered the first thing.  This varied practice helps to develop discrimination skills whereby you can assess the context and select a correct solution from among a range of possibilities.

Try to form structures for what you are learning and connect new information to things you already know.  This helps give you things to “hang” new information on to what you have already learned or already know well.  This ensures a better process of encoding and consolidation both of which are necessary for later retrieval.

Structures can involve identifying principles, rules and key ideas which allow you to apply knowledge to unfamiliar situations.  This contrasts with memorising examples where you can struggle when the situation differs from the example memorised.

Remember that familiarity is not learning – try to embrace difficulties as you are learning.  Your growth mindset is important here – what do mistakes mean to you?  It’s essential to see mistakes as a process of learning and not as failures because evidence suggests that learning that is more difficult is typically 

So now that you know….. how about doing that 

.  You should find that the suggestions above have worked and you have learnt something new about the process of learning already!

Test Answers: 1-C, 2-False, 3-C, 4-B, 5-B.

Learning how to learn

My daughter applied for a credit card a month back.  It was all online, including “chatting” with someone to guide her through some of the more complicated areas.  Within 20 minutes, she had applied and was approved.  When asked about the experience, she said it was great because she got it done all online and “didn’t really have to talk to anyone”!!!  

Turn the clock back 30 years to when I applied for a credit card, it was obviously very different.  There was no real “customer experience” that was taken into consideration.  I filled out a form, had to wait a week for approval and then 3 weeks later received a card.  I didn’t really have any options around the different products or how I would have preferred to go about the process etc.

Organisations now have renewed understanding that the 

 as just as important as the products themselves. This has been driven by a shift in consumers’ expectations which in turn is likely influenced by the leadership of inventive organisations and the availability of supporting technology solutions.  Customer experience is now a very important  (if not the most important) differentiator amongst organisations looking to stand out from the crowd.  As a result, the process of understanding a customer’s needs and delivering them a product/service that matches that need has also evolved.  

Understanding a customer’s requirements takes many forms.  It requires many perspectives and utilises numerous tools, processes, frameworks etc.  It’s not easy!! And it’s definitely not the job for just one role.  This is where I believe Experience Designers and BAs should work closely together to form a complete picture of what the customer needs and wants and what is practical and viable.  There shouldn’t be a handover from CX to BA or vice versa.  There should be constant communication and sharing of ideas between the two disciplines when developing a customer journey, researching, defining business and system requirements, documenting a process and writing a user story.  At the end of the day, its all about requirements….isn’t it? Or am I simplifying it too much? What has changed however is the perspective of who 

CX and BA most distinctly are not the same thing.  I believe there are nuances between the roles, but to me, the strength lies in the areas of cross over it seems like a very natural pairing of skills, experience and persona.

A friend of mine and fellow BA, Arvind Arcot, wrote an amazing article (

) about this a while back and we had a very robust conversation with a number of CX Designers during an open discussion.  At the end of the discussion, there was agreement that the roles are intertwined.  In a customer-centric world, BAs need to increase their knowledge of CX frameworks, tooling etc and be customer-centric.  It’s a natural evolution to the BA role.

Look forward to hearing from the community out there.

Now, what was the spending limit on my daughter’s credit card again?!

CX Designers and BAs, there is so much to learn from each other

Organisations are increasingly turning to digital customer self-service capabilities to empower customers to enhance the customer experience, reduce support costs, and foster more significant customer satisfaction. 

This article explores the top five topics to consider when embarking on the journey of developing a digital customer self-service capability. We will delve into each aspect, providing insights and practical tips to help you create a self-service portal that empowers your customers, increases operational efficiency, and strengthens customer loyalty.

By focusing on the top five items below, you can build a customer-centric portal that meets and exceeds customer expectations.

Customers seek instant access to information and the ability to resolve their queries independently. Organisations increasingly turn to digital channels to empower customers and streamline support processes. A well-designed and robust customer self-service capability can significantly enhance your customer experience, reduce support costs, and foster more significant customer satisfaction.

Most importantly, this is what your customers expect.

The rise of social media, on-demand services, search engines, and now generative AI, has conditioned customers to seek immediate answers and solutions independently and in their own time. 

We have categorised these Customer expectations as follows:

Numerous studies and surveys have shown that customers prefer self-service options when resolving their queries. According to a study by Nuance Communications, 67% of consumers prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative.

Technology allows us to ‘fill the cracks’ in our day with valuable work. For example, we can check out account balance while standing in a line or pay a bill while on public transport. Making tasks easy for customers is critical for loyalty, and a self-service capability is essential for making tasks easy and convenient. A paper published in the HBR suggested reducing customer effort, that is, the work they need to do to solve their problems, if far more influential than dazzling them with an amazing service experience.

Allowing customers to access and manage their data, view the status of their account, change their subscription plans, monitor the progress of their orders and even making it easy to cancel their service can significantly improve trust and loyalty in a brand. Giving customers this power also reduces operational costs for support staff to manage these tasks for users.

Advancements in technology have enabled customers to access vast amounts of information at their fingertips. They can search for answers, access knowledge bases, watch video tutorials, and interact with interactive tools to find solutions independently. These tools are the new normal, and customers will increasingly be frustrated when they cannot access the information they expect.

Building a digital customer self-service portal capability requires careful consideration of various factors to ensure its effectiveness and success. From optimising user experience (UX), integrating back-end systems and prioritising security, each aspect is vital in providing customers with a seamless and intuitive self-service experience.

The primary purpose of a self-service portal is to enable customers to find solutions to their problems independently. To that end, a Self-Service solution must be more than a simple portal where users can find their account balance. Here are some key considerations:

Provide interactive tools or calculators that allow customers to perform tasks or make decisions on their own, such as product configurations, comparison tools, or financial planning tools.

Offer self-service features for customers to manage their accounts, update personal information, view order history, track shipments, or make changes to subscriptions or services.

Create a comprehensive knowledge base that covers frequently asked questions, troubleshooting guides, product/service information, and any other relevant resources. Organise it logically and make it easily searchable.

Enable customers to submit support tickets or inquiries through the portal. Integrate an efficient ticket management system to ensure prompt responses and track resolution progress.

While letting customers serve themselves is the key purpose, there will likely always be a point when a hand-off to a human is needed. A “digital first, human when it matters” strategy is a concept where these important human touch points are considered from the start. Live chat tools are a great way to solve this part of the experience.

Start by mapping out your Customer Journeys to understand the fundamental transactions and processes your Customers navigate when interacting with your business. Understand the current state but spend most effort in mapping the future state. Consider all their interactions, from purchasing a product, requesting support, paying a bill, and even cancelling your service. Map the journeys as Service Blueprints, capturing the high-level process, interactions and hand-off between people, systems, business rules and pain points.

User experience refers to how users interact with and perceive your digital services. Designing the portal with the end user in mind is crucial, making it intuitive and user-friendly at all levels. Consider the following aspects:

Understand your users: This sounds obvious, but spending the time to conduct user research and understand your user’s needs, the different types of users and their behaviours is one of the most essential parts of your UX design. Don’t take it for granted that you understand your customers – you need to speak with them.

Ensure the portal is easy to navigate, with clear menus, logical information architecture, and intuitive search functionality.

Provide concise and easy-to-understand instructions for using the portal’s features and accessing relevant information.

Design an aesthetically pleasing interface with consistent visual language, appealing colours, and appropriate use of imagery. According to research from the University of Missouri, it takes 2.6 seconds for a user to make a first impression of a website. The better the first impression, the longer they will engage with your services.

Optimise the portal to be responsive across different devices and screen sizes, providing a seamless experience for users accessing it from smartphones, tablets, or desktops. Understanding your user persona, as referenced above, is critical to this item as it allows you to prioritise the channels that make the most sense and provide different experiences depending on the devices they are using.

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