Cisco IT’s User Experience Playbook: Shared Goals and Accountability

When we talk about user experience (UX), we raise the importance of better UX design and a better user interface, along with the ability for us to make UX pervasive. What we’re really trying to establish, the bottom line, is a cultural change as to how we approach these priorities. How can we make pervasive UX part of our DNA and embed it in our operating model, enable innovation through continuous delivery in a way that surprises and delights our clients? In Cisco IT, we created a User Experience Playbook with the following five chapters:

In my previous blogs, I covered chapters 1 through 4 of our playbook. The final chapter deals with having shared goals and accountability within IT and across business functions. It’s about connecting the dots with other organizations to ensure that we provide a pervasive, improved user experience.

It’s very important to design for performance up front, not only in the architecture but also in creating environments for testing scenarios (simulated environment). We include and partner with business units outside IT as necessary. Having an interlock with the business and all organizations tied to the complete delivery of a service ensures a better way to plan, test, implement and operate the service delivery.

Think about it this way: If your IT service is going to have a support component, include the Support Service team or business unit in the strategy and related conversations. If your IT service will be delivered across multiple geographies, arrange for simulated scenarios that can tell you how the performance will be in different locations. With your partnership across the enterprise, you can better test the full experience, from service performance to support.

Technology is a big component of UX, but the interlock and partnership with the business and within IT is paramount to ensure a great user experience. Race cars don’t win just because of their excellent engines. It’s the technology and the team that brings success.