Needs Assessment

If there's an app that I want for my phone, then I install it, I play around with it, and if I don't like it I uninstall it. But the problem is, when it comes to a business, if we start operating our business where we just install any app that a user wants or a department wants, that can actually cause some problems. So we have to go through to make sure that whatever app that we're installing on our systems, whatever apps we're purchasing, is something that we actually need and that is going to meet our needs. That's a needs assessment on what we need for the business, for a department, for a user.

Lots of Options, Different Needs

There are a lot of different apps out there, different apps that do different things. For instance, maybe I want to create a document, so maybe I want some sort of word processor to create a document. For each one of those categories we have a lot of different options, so then we need to start narrowing it down: what product is going to work best for us?

Let me give you an example. Let's say I wanted to type up a document. Maybe it's a letter, maybe I want to type up a letter and send it to somebody. Well, there's lots of options for that. I could go through Google Docs, I could do Microsoft Word, I could use Notepad. Which one is going to meet my needs? Well, I can tell you that Notepad doesn't really allow me to do any kind of formatting, so I might want to use Google Docs or Microsoft Word.

You see, each one of these programs meets different needs, which is one reason why I use all four of these on a fairly consistent basis. I probably use Google Docs the most, because it's just really accessible and I get a lot of free stuff online with Google Docs, so it's something that I use quite a bit. I also use Notepad a lot — I pull it up and I put little notes in it, and there's reasons why I use Notepad. But there's also Microsoft Word, that allows me to get a little more granular with the control of what I'm editing, so I use it quite a bit. And then if I'm doing something like manipulating code, I'll use Notepad++. So they each serve different needs that I have, and I use all four of these.

Why This Matters at Scale

So we have a bunch of software that meets our needs. What's the big deal? Well, when it comes to businesses, you're doing things at scale, and there are some concerns that arise because of that. Some security concerns that come up, some supportability concerns that come up. Whatever software we're investing into — because it's an investment — is it going to take us down the wrong path, or is it going to actually meet our needs?

There have been many, many, many times when a user or department has gone out and purchased software without including IT, and then they expect IT to support it when it's never going to actually meet their needs. It's happened so many times to me. So we need to be included on the decision early, to help them make sure that the software that they are going to purchase is going to meet their needs.

An Example: The Daycare Database

Let me give you a great example. One of my clients had a bunch of different daycares all around. Two hours in one direction was one of the sites, two hours in the other direction was another site, and many, many, many sites in between. So I had all of these sites that I would go to and do support.

Well, they wanted some sort of database to track all of the times that these students were being clocked in — the clients were clocking their kids in as part of the daycare — and then when they were leaving, they wanted to track all of that for billing purposes and just make things a lot easier. They didn't do a proper needs assessment. They got sold on a product that wasn't going to fully meet their needs, but they thought it was going to. We'd implemented half of it, rolled out half of it, already had purchased the software, when they realized it's not ever going to do exactly what it is that they want to do. It was very problematic.

And so now we have a problem: we have software that we've already invested a ton of time and energy and dollars into, yet it's not going to meet our needs. So we want to avoid that by doing a proper needs assessment and then finding a solution that meets those needs.

How You Do a Needs Assessment

So the next question is, how do you do a needs assessment? Well, I have a lot to say on this topic, and it's really beyond the scope of this course to get real in depth into what a needs assessment is and how we conduct it. But I will say that I include a lot of people going through this needs assessment. I make sure that we get input from many different people. And then, when I choose a solution or assist in the process of choosing a solution, we get many solutions out there and we start evaluating all of these different solutions to figure out what is going to be the best solution to meet the needs of the individual or the department or whoever is asking for the software.