Within a mobilized team, the implementation project needs one or more individuals that truly commit to it and assume the role of that system’s “father/mother”. This person is the Key User.
Nowadays, the term Key user is widespread among organizations and it brings about some organizational changes. For example, employees who were previously seen only as those with the greatest mastery in a company’s particular business area now get defined roles and responsibilities. Key users are, therefore, the focal points in terms of knowledge dissemination about the tools and rules of a business process.
Since key users are centralizers of all matters pertaining to a system, such a burden of responsibility can bring them notoriety within your organization. So, as you can imagine, choosing carefully who will take on this role within a project will ensure it’s successfully executed.
For your company to have great key users, some important aspects need to be observed for each candidate, as we’ll see below (reference: Industrial Blog).
Key Users Competencies
1. Empowerment and good relationship with co-workers
Key users must receive all training and capacity building, especially since they will be responsible for multiplying the knowledge among the rest of the team.
It is also important that key users have a good relationship with everyone involved in the project. This reduces the barriers between the company’s current routine and the presentation of new ideas, which will change the way everyone works. Every human being has a certain resistance to change, and this becomes even more complicated when these changes are presented and demanded by a person who does not empathize as much with other employees.
2. Strategic decision support
Key users will need, at several moments, to participate in strategic decisions about their projects. In more complex ones, it will be necessary to involve project sponsors (the board of directors and/or the company presidency), but their contribution should always be positive to the subject in question.
If the key user is not a project sponsor, it’s advisable that he or she has access to whoever is, in order to facilitate the decision-making and the progress of the project.
3. Good technical knowledge
Key users must have good technical knowledge of the issues to be addressed. We can’t use an employee who has no knowledge of process concepts and is not minimally familiar with the company’s processes.
It is also necessary that these people are minimally familiar with the training subject and that they’re able to control certain situations that will eventually happen when the system is in operation.
4. Deep understanding of the company’s routines and processes
Key users also need to know how the company works, in general. There are many processes that are integrated with each other, so caring only about one part of it can interfere negatively with the routine and processes at the other end.
5. Availability to perform the tasks related to the project
Throughout the implementation project, key users will need to dedicate themselves to several tasks and “homework assignments” passed on by the consultant during implementation meetings and/or visits. Therefore, they must be willing to attend to all the requests that are presented to them.
In many cases, the person who assumes this role has no free time to do any other activity in the company. Consider an industrial manager who spends 90% of his time in the factory following up on all the occurrences that appear. Even if he has solid technical and process knowledge, he wouldn’t be able to assume this role, because he wouldn’t be able to spend the necessary time in front of a computer to perform all the tasks that are passed on.
6. Motivation and sense of responsibility
Key users must be motivated and feel responsible for the success of their projects. This is what fuels the achievement of great results. If people do not feel good about themselves or see their assignment as a burden, these are indications that we will have problems implementing the system in the company and that someone else needs to be prepared for this occupation.
7. Profit & Loss Statement
It’s desirable that key users present concrete results about the performance of their projects to the company’s managers. As the stages of the implementation are completed, it’s necessary to present and evaluate what has been delivered, in order to communicate which stages of the schedule were executed and what are the next steps to be taken. This is the factor that will ensure the desired result in the endeavor.
Summarizing
There is a maxim that says that knowledge is power. If knowledge is really powerful, the same cannot be said about “knowledge is action”. Many companies invest huge amounts of money to acquire knowledge but do not know exactly how to transform this knowledge into action.
To solve this situation, there are the key users, who, as we tried to show, are disseminators of knowledge. The key user is extremely important in Project Management because besides being the person capable of transforming knowledge into action, he or she will be the focal point of interaction.
In the article, we presented the seven competencies required of key users. Below is a summary of how the ideal key user should be:
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Reference:
Industrial Blog “Key User: What it is and how it can ensure success in your management system deployment”