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■ MANAGEMENT’S PERSPECTIVE
This exercise is tough because it forces you to think critically about how your
users perceive you. When you think through these questions, consider things you’ve
heard from users, and be prepared to confront some negatives. Remember that the
point of the exercise is to identify the users’ perspective, whether positive or negative.
Now the challenge is to take what you’ve learned from gauging the users’ per-
spective and figure out what, if anything, you need to change to achieve a positive
perception from your user base. For instance, if the overwhelming user perspective is
that more training is needed, you should either add training or find the root cause of
why more training seems to be needed and eliminate the cause. Always remember that
if you allow a negative user perspective to linger or fester, then you’ll have to deal with
not only angry users but most likely angry management as well.
Ignore the users’ perspective at your peril!
Management’s Perspective
Your senior management has its own perspective on the CAD manager’s position, and
that perspective is curiously bipolar in nature. Because management understands that
CAD work is done by CAD users, they have a vested interest in CAD users being well
supported. This places management on the user-centric side of the ledger. On the other
hand, management is also worried about longer-term factors like budgets, technology
adoption, the cost of software training, and a host of other issues that users typically
don’t deal with. CAD managers find themselves sandwiched between the seemingly
conflicting user and management perspectives.
Figure 1.3 Management views things from a strategy point of view, not unlike a chess game.So how well
do you manage the resources you already have to play the CAD management chess game most effectively?
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