User/Feature Access: From checklists to matrices

One of my experiences was to work for a Software as a Service company that catered to a particular industry. For forty years this company dominated the niche. Their approach was robust mainframes at one central location while their clients used terminal emulator software to manage their data.

This was the age of the web however and the company needed a make-over. Users wanted a graphical user interface with links similar to what they experience every day on the web. A Java web based front end was developed. They hired me to help them implement it across their clients up and down the left coast.

The documentation was really poor--as it always is when it comes from IT. It was done in haste and without the end-customer in mind. It was very technical and even seasoned system administrators at the clients' were puzzled by it.

Enter the BA who is constantly working to simplify and explain in terms end users understand and not all the mumbo jumbo that IT delivers. I had to translate what our Product Management team had delivered and developed my own.

Because we needed to run, the first couple implementations were not pretty. Either I missed capturing the needed functionality or features were not properly turned on. But every implementation left a lesson learned and by the 3rd instance, I started to feel confident. Experience gives one the commanding heights to begin standardizing the process.

Around that time I read Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto and I became convinced that I needed to develop my own checklist for my work.

I developed templates to address all the modules features offered and what the client needed. This ensured I didn't miss anything. List out all functionality by module and if the client uses it, then populate it with user groups. Soon patterns emerged and I saw that the matrix could benefit from coloring coding and grouping those with access from those without. A Yes value became green and a No value became muted with a pink background. Now, I could arrange the groups according to their access. Those with the most access to the left and those groups with less to the left.

Below is what emerged. Here is a list of modules' features/functions along with user groups. Right away you can tell who has access and who doesn't and to what. This was tremendous help with meeting with client's management and they could see who had what in an instant. Without knowing much of the system, you can see what group Management is in.

This simplified reporting, maintenance and facilitated new hires' access as well as those folks that transferred from one role to another.

This was a success with clients and at my company. Soon, other BAs in other regions of the country began to use it as it simplified and standardized the process.

I'd say it was a win-win for everyone around.