Step 1 to our Peer Learning Framework is to Uncover the Pain.
Internal systems are poorly understood. That tool or process lacks up-to-date, easy-to-find documentation. They prevent your people from doing their best work. Yet people need to understand it to do their job. They feel blocked. Frustrated.
Your organization wastes time on support issues. That email question or that tap on the shoulder — there’s a cost to those. We rarely keep track of these interruptions. A five minute question throws us out of the flow for a half an hour.
So, how do you uncover these pain points?
The biggest offenders are at the center. These are systems that everyone uses. Start there.
How do you find them?
Ask. Everyone has their favorite system to blame. Ask a few folks. Or conduct a lightweight survey. Patterns will emerge.
Use data. Look for systems with most users. Explore the processes that everyone should follow yet they rarely do it well. Look at the dependency graph of tools and libraries that sit at the core.
Create an ordered list of systems that irritate your people the most. Highlight where sharing best practices would make many people more productive. Start there.
This is a part of Peer Learning Framework. What’s next? It’s time for you to Create Heroes.
