My daughter Joyce is graduating this week with a Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy (#joytheot). Joyce has spent some time educating me on Occupational Therapy, and one of the concepts that I really like is OT’s position on Client Centered Care. I think there is a message there for us in the IT industry.
Client Centered Care starts with getting its goals directly from the client. If I was to be in some kind of accident, the healthcare industry would work to put me back together. They would try to restore me to normal operating condition. An Occupational Therapist often picks up this point and starts by ascertaining a goal. The goal is set by the client. So maybe in this case my goals might be: get back to work and cook. The “occupation” in occupational therapy doesn’t just mean work; it really refers to anything someone might want to do in order to lead a full life. So rather than worry about what movement or capabilities I’ve gained or lost, Client Centered Care simply focuses on my goals and works backward. What accommodations can I use to get back to work and back into the kitchen? Are there tools? Should I focus on some specific new skill? As soon as I’m back to work and making chili on the weekend, it’s a win.
It’s important to note that the goals are occupational. My goal isn’t a certain strength or range of movement. It’s something I want to do.
IT executives will often talk about aligning IT with business goals but we generally don’t start with business goals and work backward. We buy tools with specific operating parameters and we spend our time keeping them working “normally”. We need occupational goals from our users. We don’t need users specifying the kind of computers they need, we need them talking about what they’re trying to do in their job.
I met a CIO in a hospital once and we were talking about login times. I asked him what his goal was. He said, “We’re at 12 seconds now and I need to get to 6. I’d love to get to 3. If you want an honest answer, we really need zero. Nurses and doctors want to walk up to a computer and use it immediately, not wait during a login. So I guess that makes zero my goal. Do you have any zero login time technologies?”
Luckily for us, we were able to set him up with some Citrix technologies that would allow a fully stated machine to travel from terminal to terminal. One login wait per day per employee. Maybe not exactly zero but closer to what he needed.
I think we’re often afraid to take on the burden of putting end user requirements at the center of the design. We’re afraid that they’ll be unrealistic, maybe downright crazy. It’s a leap of faith to put the client’s requirements at the center of our solution.
Let’s be brave and take that leap. What if we put user goals at the center our design? I think it’s worth a shot.