Background Quality Appliances is a regional chain of appliance outlets. Three months ago a new IS system went live to handle all sales, billing, and inventory activity for the chain. All seemed well at the end of the implementation phase. A follow-up survey, however, reveals some issues have developed that Susan Thomas, the IT consultant who developed and implemented the system, wants to address. Several new hires in the sales force have occurred in the past month. Original plans were to have training for all new hires given by department managers. The new sales people, however, indicate that no training was provided, and they were expected to “train themselves” from the documentation created for the new system. The new hires indicate they are having trouble using the system, because the documentation is support oriented and assumes a knowledge of the system. Several members of the sales force have asked for enhancements to the system that would allow them more easily to track their sales and repeat customers. Currently, sales reports are being created for department heads only. One data input field has been mentioned by several users as counter-intuitive. The questionnaire revealed several different interpretations of this field, and several different suggestions for improvement. This particular field was one that was added based on user feedback from initial designs, but was not evaluated subsequently for usability. Department heads are responsible for evaluating maintenance requests and passing them on to the vice president of operations for action. Susan, who is contracted for support services for the six months following implementation, has received no maintenance requests at all from this vice president, although users indicate that they have filed maintenance requests with their department heads. The vice president had insisted he be the evaluator of maintenance requests, and that he would pass on requests that needed action. Assignments Should Susan reevaluate the path that maintenance requests follow? What questions should she ask about the current status of maintenance requests?
Background
Quality Appliances is a regional chain of appliance outlets. Three months ago a new IS system went live to handle all sales, billing, and inventory activity for the chain. All seemed well at the end of the implementation phase. A follow-up survey, however, reveals some issues have developed that Susan Thomas, the IT consultant who developed and implemented the system, wants to address.
Several new hires in the sales force have occurred in the past month. Original plans were to have training for all new hires given by department managers. The new sales people, however, indicate that no training was provided, and they were expected to “train themselves” from the documentation created for the new system. The new hires indicate they are having trouble using the system, because the documentation is support oriented and assumes a knowledge of the system.
Several members of the sales force have asked for enhancements to the system that would allow them more easily to track their sales and repeat customers. Currently, sales reports are being created for department heads only.
One data input field has been mentioned by several users as counter-intuitive. The questionnaire revealed several different interpretations of this field, and several different suggestions for improvement. This particular field was one that was added based on user feedback from initial designs, but was not evaluated subsequently for usability.
Department heads are responsible for evaluating maintenance requests and passing them on to the vice president of operations for action. Susan, who is contracted for support services for the six months following implementation, has received no maintenance requests at all from this vice president, although users indicate that they have filed maintenance requests with their department heads. The vice president had insisted he be the evaluator of maintenance requests, and that he would pass on requests that needed action.
Assignments
- Should Susan reevaluate the path that maintenance requests follow? What questions should she ask about the current status of maintenance requests?
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