It's NOT about the Tech or the Process - it's about the Customer!

This week I have the pleasure of participating in the annual SHAZAM Forum!  It is an event that my organization holds each year to keep our Financial Institutions informed on key trends within the industry.  Over the next few days I will have the opportunity to interact with hundreds of our customers.  To listen to their stories, to understand their needs and to enjoy some time together.

Let's be honest, as much as I care about the tools that we use and the processes that we have in place.  Our customers really could care less.  They care about that fact that the systems we provide will function - that they can open a new account when someone walks into one of their branches, that they can process a loan when one of their commercial customers needs a new piece of equipment, that their account holders can login to their internet banking site and transfer money between accounts, that their account holders can use their debit card when purchasing groceries at their local grocery store and that when I detect some fraudster starting to steal their customers money - that it is stopped.

They really don't care that I use Java or C++, they could care less if I used Agile or Waterfall project management paradigms.  They don't think about the various testing methodologies in place to prevent bugs from impacting their ability to perform their work.

Put simply - our customers want and deserve to be delighted when using the systems and services that my organization provides.  They don't want to know the details of why or how we made decisions and built the services/systems, they just want to be able to use them to conduct business with their account holders.

I look forward to our annual Forum because it's my opportunity to get to know the folks that choose to do business with the organization that I work for; I get to hear what is important to them; I get to listen to the frustrations that they have using the systems that my teams build; I get to listen to the concerns that they have about the market that they serve.

Let's be honest, on a daily basis, most individuals within an IT organization have very few opportunities to interact with the customers of the systems that they build.  I'm intentionally not counting the internal customers.  Internal customers are important, but they do not provide a true reflection of what our Financial Institutions, their employees and their account holders are challenged with on a daily basis.

It's important to occasionally step away from the technology and immerse yourself in the world that your customers deal with every day.  To understand their interactions with the systems and services that you build so that you can understand what needs to change in future iterations.

In other words - it's not all about me, it really is all about the customer!

For those of you that will be attending our Forum - I look forward to seeing you again this year or meeting you if it's your first time!

If you'd like more information on my background: LinkedIn Profile