[RBM] “I” - How to engage end users to seen business perspective.

Modernization projects typically originate from internal initiatives like CRM updates, platform modernization, or database replatforming. These projects often begin with smaller, less customer-facing systems, leading many to mistakenly view them as "clientless." This perspective, while making decisions easier, overlooks the reality that internal users function as genuine clients. Value Stream Mapping practices have begun to address this by recognizing streams related to internal users.

As companies build their own internal platform teams, these teams face the same pressures as outside providers like AWS or Google. This means they need to treat their coworkers as real customers—a small change in thinking that makes their solutions much better.

With this user-centric view, we can identify who actually uses our platforms, both internally and externally. We recognize that multiple user groups exist, each with distinct needs. In a CRM system, for example, we have salespeople as primary users, but also sales managers who require team performance tracking capabilities, and directors who require broader KPI monitoring rather than individual pipeline details.

When considering modernization, we must account for all system users and identify who benefits from proposed changes. Take CICD and SDLC systems—these aren't merely development platforms but critical business infrastructure serving multiple stakeholders: developers as primary users, delivery managers tracking progress, product owners watching their vision materialize, and business development teams showcasing new capabilities. Ultimately, efficient development pipelines accelerate feature delivery to end users, creating tangible business value and helping companies implement new ideas faster.

It's crucial to consider these diverse perspectives when evaluating solutions. In some groups, as mentioned previously, Performers can also be system users. These internal stakeholders require careful handling in your proposal since they have more direct impact than external users, working closely with you and decision makers.

This doesn't diminish the importance of external users, but their impact manifests later compared to internal users, who can influence solutions before implementation decisions are even made.

Once we understand our end users, their potential benefits, and their impact on our proposal, we must take a critical step: validating whether our proposal delivers real value. In my experience, modernization often begins with systems that aren't even being used. These systems should either be merged with more relevant ones or completely redesigned from scratch.

This information can work to your advantage if you're clear about desired outcomes:

1. If a system is no longer useful, it can serve as an experimental project to expand your company's modernization capabilities, though you should clearly frame it as a learning initiative with limited benefits. These projects provide valuable hands-on experience for your development team without the pressure of business-critical deadlines, but on real-world application - is not academical exercise. They create safe spaces for trying new technologies, architectures, and methodologies that might otherwise be too risky to implement on mission-critical systems. However, be transparent with stakeholders about the primarily educational nature of such undertakings to manage expectations appropriately.
2. A still-useful system offers better advantages, justifying modernization initiatives like rebuilding or integrating it into a new platform as a microservice. This approach delivers stronger business impact since your effort directly benefits the company. When modernizing actively used systems, you're simultaneously improving functionality while building institutional knowledge. Your team gains practical experience working with technologies that will immediately enhance business operations. The dual benefits of operational improvements and skill development make these projects particularly valuable, especially when targeting systems with clear pain points or technical debt that affects daily operations.
3. Complete system redesigns present the greatest challenges, potentially causing serious business disruption. The cautionary tale of Netscape's rewrite demonstrates how such projects can negatively transform markets. When Netscape decided to rewrite their browser completely from scratch, the multi-year effort left them vulnerable to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, ultimately leading to their market collapse. However, this isn't a lost cause—I recommend starting with a small part of the system, focusing on specific functionality. This approach allows learning effective replatforming methods, preparing the environment, and creating space for learning without disrupting operations. By isolating a non-critical component for initial modernization, you can establish patterns, identify potential pitfalls, and develop the expertise needed before tackling more complex elements. This incremental strategy minimizes risk while still moving toward comprehensive modernization goals.

Another often-overlooked aspect is validating your modernization ideas with actual users. I recently participated in redesigning a subscription management system, where I discovered incorrect user group assignments—administrators were handling tasks that should have been managed by user support. They literally handle problems with subscriptions - for example, when users pay but receive the wrong subscription package or don't get it at all. The Support Team lacked proper tools to handle these situations since the information was stored across three separate systems. Access to all three systems and knowledge of the specific magic numbers connecting them was required to resolve these issues, resulting in a significant waste of time and energy, as only the administration team understood those systems.

This insight revealed the need for a different design approach. We separated support functionality into its system that integrated with the others to provide a more holistic view. We rebuilt all three systems with simple services that manage interconnections between them. Now, support staff can fix user problems with just one click in the support UI without needing to involve system administrators anymore.

This redesign eliminated nearly 35% of administrators' workload while only marginally increasing support team responsibilities. It also removed the need for staff to contact administration through email and issue boards for problem validation.

With this comprehensive perspective, your proposal becomes more complete and easier to present as the logical next step for your company. It's also worth examining all of this from the end user perspective, as it always speaks powerfully to business sponsors of such projects.

Take our subscription case, for example. Previously, broken subscription packages led to two-week resolution times, which lowered our NPS scores and drove customers to alternative services. After resolving this issue, users are much happier because they can resolve problems with just one support call.

Imagine the frustration of waiting for an important football match, buying a PPV subscription one hour before kickoff, only to encounter a problem that prevents access for two weeks. That's clear frustration! By addressing these pain points, we not only improve customer satisfaction but also protect revenue and brand loyalty. Remember that the whole initiatives start from small projects where administrators struggle to handle cases with complex dependencies. Addressing this issue delivers real customer value. Take a look and identify where it resonates.

What do you think about this approach to system redesign?

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