This document discusses how crowdsourcing technology and persona-based approaches can help create a happier and more productive digital workplace. It argues that traditional IT approaches focus too much on process efficiency rather than empowering workers. The key is putting people before process. Crowdsourcing leverages social platforms to shift provisioning and support to users. Persona-based approaches tailor the user experience based on individual roles to maximize engagement and productivity. The combination of these approaches helps align changing business needs in the new digital environment.

1. THE KEY TO
GOING DIGITAL
THINK PEOPLE
Crowdsourcing technology and
persona-based approaches are
key to creating a happier and
more productive digital
workplace

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE
CHAPTER 2: CROWDSOURCING TECHNOLOGY:
SOCIAL PROVISIONING AND SUPPORT
CHAPTER 3: PERSONA-BASED APPROACHES:
ONE SIZE DOESN’T FIT ALL
CONCLUSION
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3. Introduction 1
People. Process. Technology. Every business
leader recognizes these three pillars of
IT success. For decades, organizations
focused on technology, improving IT
efficiency through process automation and
industrialized IT. The experience of people,
employees and customers, often seemed
a distant third. Today’s new digitally driven
environment, with its focus on worker
productivity, demands the traditional order
be reversed.
Consider the typical office of 1995. An
on-site worker with a PC, desk and landline
telephone works within a strictly defined
chain of events and procedures based on
ITIL, the industry framework for rigorous
governance of standard IT processes.
Support tools with embedded ITIL best
practices did a great job optimizing IT
Service Management (ITSM) and support.
Unfortunately, the end user experience left
much to be desired. Little was obvious or
intuitive. No surprise that workers often
resented and resisted IT procedures that
seemed tedious, bureaucratic and unnatural.
In essence, people served the process.
INTRODUCTION
What is the key to going digital?
People before process.

4. 2Introduction
“The way individuals and
companies interact, collaborate,
and leverage IT resources and
technology is shifting. Today’s
employees need quick
and easy access to services that
help them work efficiently.”
Robert Young,
Research Director at IDC
Now consider today’s work environment.
A typical professional still has a desk, but
likely also works regularly at home and on
the road, in an airport or a coffee shop,
across town or across the world. They are
equipped with a notebook, smart phone,
tablet or “phablet,” mifi hotspot and
perhaps, a smart watch. Much of the day
is spent switching between company and
social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn,
cloud-based services like Dropbox and
Skype, and a host of user-friendly software
programs and apps. Some are company-
approved, many are not. Time between tasks
might be spent doing one-touch shopping
on Amazon or dinner delivery. This new
digital workplace is complex, placeless
and dynamic.
This e-book focuses on two important
ways to shift focus from process to people;
crowdsourcing and persona-driven user
experience. Each aims to empower both
sides of the service desk with technology
that helps people work faster, smarter
and more easily.
INTRODUCTION

5. Expectations /
Demands of Millennials
Those ages 18 to 29 have always been
the most likely users of social media
by a considerable margin. Today,
90% of young adults use social
media.2
This generation has grown
up with the Internet, smartphones,
social networks, immediate feedback,
and exceptional levels of service.
Millennials expect and demand
digital workplace initiatives that
span social, collaboration, and smart
office capabilities.
Faster New Hire Assimilation
For a new employee, it takes weeks to
figure out systems, forms, processes,
key people, etc. Digitizing onboarding
significantly drives down the time for
a worker to become truly productive.
Greater Competitiveness
More millennials are entering the
workforce.3
Companies failing to
adopt mechanisms needed to quickly
advance in the digital world and
attract digitally savvy workers will
find themselves in a weakened
competitive position.
GROWTH OF MILLENNIALS IN THE WORKFORCE
Source: Brookings Institute, How Millennials Could Upend Wall Street and Corporate America, May 2014
1 BMC Delivers New Innovative Solutions to Enhance Employees Digital Experiences
2 Pew Research Center, Social Media Use 2005-2015.
3 Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, 2015.
Digitally Engaging the Millennials
and Provide Breakthroughs in IT Productivity, Press Release, December 8, 2015.
3

6. The Digital Workplace
CHAPTER 1

7. 5Chapter 1
What is required is a radical rethinking
of traditional IT provisioning and support.
More specifically, a 180-degree shift to a
“people-centric” view focused squarely
on user empowerment, while keeping
necessary process enforcement and
governance out of user sight.
Such inward-facing modes of IT service
will prove increasingly inadequate in
today’s new digital workplace. Success
for most IT organizations will depend on
how well they are able to close the gap
between managing IT service efficiency in
a static environment and enabling worker
productivity using an ever-growing array
of digital services. Supporting services is
no longer sufficient for IT; enabling and
empowering the workforce is mandatory.
The quest to align changing business
and user needs has led to what some
people call a digital workplace, which is
not a physical place, but rather the digital
unification on a single gateway for all of a
user’s devices, networks, apps and digital
services available from any physical place.
IN THIS NEW ERA, WORKER PRODUCTIVITY HAS ECLIPSED IT
EFFICIENCY AS A PREMIER TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS VALUE.
THE BIG CHALLENGE, THEN, BECOMES:
How can we enable today’s
digitally savvy workers to
be productive and happy in
the most frictionless way?
“People are demanding
and expecting a more digital
experience and want to be
engaged. They will go elsewhere if
they can’t be engaged.”
Michele McFadden,
AVP of Product Management
and Marketing at BMC Software

8. Crowdsourcing Technology: Social Provisioning and Support
CHAPTER 2

9. Chapter 2 7
Traditional approaches to IT service
management might be summed up as:
“IT will handle IT.” While it made sense in
previous computing eras, such command
and control must be evolved for the digital
It’s Inevitable
IT Friction Hurts
Productivity
“Shadow IT”
is Out of Control.
Whether enterprises like it or not employees are using
their devices. Rather than just saying no, and then have
employees do it anyway, Frost & Sullivan recommends
a more measured approach. “The solution is for the
company to develop policies that strike the right balance
between flexibility and control. IT and business leaders
need to work together to create and support policies
that enable employees to use the apps they need to be
productive, with controls in place to protect data and
minimize corporate risk.” 4
A Forrester study found the average business worker
loses about two days a month due to IT-related issues,
or so-called IT friction. Not only is time wasted waiting
for a resolution, but the hours spent researching what’s
wrong, combing through knowledge management
databases, locating the service catalog, completing the
submission form, and repeatedly calling IT to check on
the progress all adds up to 18 hours a month.5
Easy end user access to low-cost cloud services like
Dropbox, Office 365, Zenefits, etc. has worsened
technology spending outside of IT channels. IDC predicts
shadow IT spending will reach 33% of the average
technology budget by 2019.6
1
2
3
workplace. Crowdsourcing leverages
widespread use of social platforms to shift
much provisioning and support to the
entire user community. There are several
compelling reasons for doing so:

10. Chapter 2 8
App and Technology
Selection
Instead of wasting days identifying,
requesting, and waiting for apps,
employees come to a consumer-like
enterprise app store that provides easy
access to cloud, mobile, custom, and
How do enterprises get started?
Crowdsourcing and social collaboration
are embedded into standard workflows.
Users access these via a centralized portal,
pulling them into the center of the digital
workplace and giving them a big voice in
helping IT discover and manage the
work environment.
User benefits
Instantly activates
pre-approved items
Reduces time spent on
requests for services
Powers real time services
Fosters knowledge sharing
across the enterprise
(thanks in part to the use of
Personas – See Ch. 3)
Allows usability across iOS,
Android, or any device with
an HTML5 browser
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Easily procure, publish, secure,
track, and manage compliant
apps across the organization
Deflect routine help desk
calls to decrease the cost of
high-priority tickets
Cut IT-related downtime by
connecting business users to
IT services anywhere, anytime,
on any device
Find more time and
resources for critical IT
transformation projects
IT benefits
desktop applications. Users can comment,
rate, and share apps they enjoy, allowing
others to on-board applications based on
peer selections. BMC’s MyIT Service
Broker is an example of where employees
can find hardware, software and services
they need whenever, wherever,
in one place.

11. Chapter 2 9
Social Tech Support
Another way crowdsourcing brings
non-IT people to the center of the digital
workplace is through ongoing collaborative
tech support and education.
Unlike the traditional “waterfall’ approach
to knowledge management, crowdsourcing
democratizes knowledge helpful tips,
suggestions, outage reports, quick fixes
and general suggestions about how to use
the environment most productively are
created “by the people, for the people.”
High-contributors are recognized with
premier badging or star status. By building
a repository of crowdsourced problems
(with resolutions), IT becomes an
information powerhouse, where users
can find answers to all their questions
with little effort.
4 Frost & Sullivan, The Hidden Truth Behind Shadow IT, 2013.
5 Forrester, Exploring Business and IT Friction: Myths and Realities, April 2013.
6 IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Study, 2014.
New role for IT: Curator
Greater user involvement through
crowdsourcing doesn’t mean that IT is out
of the picture. Instead, IT’s role evolves into
technology broker and technical
knowledge curator.
As curator, IT runs a controlled process,
overseeing reporting, coaching users how
to improve the quality of their contribution
and knowledge. They work with designated
employee representatives and HR to create,
publish and tweak the application catalog
and oversee updating processes.
?

12. Persona-based Approaches: One Size Doesn’t Fit All
CHAPTER 3

13. Chapter 3 11
%
A key tenet of bringing people to the
center of the digital workplace is creating
a great user experience. A persona-
based user experience, coupled with ITIL
processes, is vital to ensuring consistency
and data integrity, while minimizing risk.
But to the employee, they can be perceived
as a hindrance to working productively.
The digital workplace makes an engaging
UI a priority. The goal is not just to offer a
pretty interface to employees accustomed
to the consumer-grade ease and design of
Google, Apple, Zappos, etc. It is to engage,
empower and free workers by providing
an attractive, simple, highly usable “front
door” to the digital workplace. This applies
to both lines of business employees as well
as internal IT staff.
That leads to a second key tenet: A great
user experience doesn’t need to reveal
its process steps to the user. Stated
otherwise, only show what a user needs to
know. A modern user experience shields
users from laborious and tedious processes
and best practice steps.
For companies who want to create
empowered employees in the digital
workplace, that means focusing on a
persona-based approach. Reduced to its
simplest in this context, it means presenting
a pre-approved user a view of a tailored UI,
customized to his/her specific job function.
For example, a persona-based approach
recognizes a line of business (LOB)
executive such as a CFO, needs a far
different set of technology and information
options than a junior financial analyst.
Similarly, in IT, a persona-based approach
recognizes that even though both interact
with change records, a Change Requester
needs a vastly different experience than a
Change Manager.
CFO

14. Chapter 3 12
Business
Consumer
IT & Service
Desk
Platform
User
Global
Business
User
Service
Desk
Agent
Service
Desk
Manager
Process
Owner
System
Admin
Business
Analyst
Developer
FIGURE 1: IDENTIFY PERSONA
Creating optimized user experiences
based on the persona V. the process
drives significant increases in employee
engagement and productivity. The
combination of mobile, social, and
persona-driven service management
is the cornerstone of a modern
platform. Engaging user experiences
that foster collaborative teams are the
key to empowering the employee and
driving employee productivity. A single
administration team can manage dozens
and hundreds of personas tailored for
individual roles.
Start with a small sample pilot
Identify key personas in the digital
workplace (see FIGURE 1)
Dispatch a technical manager and
seasoned user experience designer to
observe the employees doing their jobs
Develop a detailed persona for key
individuals and roles (see FIGURE 2)
Tackle a large digital project with
the support of top management
(ideally a Chief Digital Officer) after
pilot is completed
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Creating a Digital
Workplace Personaa

15. Chapter 3 13
TYPICAL ORG
CHART POSITION
Age
Education
Previous
Roles
Computer
Expertise
Late 20s
University graduate with
technical, humanities, or
business-focused degree
ServiceDesk Team Lead,
Problem Manager,
Change Manager
Solid, broad knowledge.
May have expert
knowledge of PC/client
technology
PRACTICE DETAILS
LOCATION
Co-located alongside
Service Desk
MANAGER
IT Operations or Service
Support Manager
TEAM
ServiceDesk analysts
(Level 1, and perhaps
Level 2)
KPIs AND SUCCESS
CRITERIA
Customer Satisfaction
survey score
First-call resolution
Response time (e.g. call
pickup, incident first
response)
Average resolution time
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+
+
+
Visibility of major
incidents arising
Workloads, queue lengths
(individual, team)
SLA targets and
performance levels
against them
BACKGROUND
Direct communication with customers in
escalation situations.
Leads daily meetings with Service Desk staff.
Weekly meetings with IT Service Level/
Relationship managers.
Escalation communications to managers.
Attendee in Service Support weekly
operational meetings.
Provides reports on performance of 3rd party
support providers.
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+
+
FIGURE 2: PERSONA DEVELOPMENT
Manages the day to day operation of the ServiceDesk
Oversees the incident queue
Handles customer service escalations
Monitors ServiceDesk performance against KPIs and manages
intervention process where necessary
Manages development of ServiceDesk staff
Participant in “war room” for large multi-change implementations
Manage assignment of issues to 3rd party support provides and
track their performance
Take proactive steps to ensure SLAs are met
INFORMATION
NEEDS
KEY OPERATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS
CORE TASKS
Head of Service Support
Service Desk Manager
Service Desk
Analyst
Support
Analyst
Service Desk
Administrator

16. 14Conclusion
The journey of increased enterprise
“digitization” and the digital workplace
depends in part on adopting what
employees want and demand. But the
most fundamental shift in mindset places
customized employee experiences and
deep collaboration with IT at the center.
Success becomes not a matter of placing
an attractive interface on an outmoded
To learn more about crowdsourcing and persona-based approaches, go to:
http://www.bmc.com/it-solutions/remedy-smart-it.html
CONCLUSION
process or vice versa, but of valuing worker
productivity and satisfaction as the surest
pathway to success. For that to happen,
people must take priority over process and
technology. Crowdsourcing and optimizing
the user experience with personas are two
powerful ways to bring employees
to the forefront.