C/RS Performance
Support Systems

The Basic Concept: Make User Competence Easy

Most user adoption strategies push and cajole users, forcing them to realign their thinking and way of working to conform to an unfamiliar application. And they demand that users stop productive work to learn how to use it.

A C/RS Performance Support System (PSS) takes the opposite approach. It's core principle:


The results? Your users' jobs become a lot easier--and so does yours!

The User Experience: A Proactive Interface

A C/RS PSS makes a user's job easier by infusing a layer of intelligence into the live application, transforming the interface from passive to proactive. At one level, it becomes an "Advisor" who

• » Guides your users through the most efficient and effective path for each of their role-specific tasks, following the organization's best practice guidelines, and
• » Supports each step of each task with the precise level of knowledge and resources required for effective performance.

At another level, it becomes a "Director" who

• » Streamlines tasks to remove unnecessary and tedious steps, and
• » Monitors and manages the user's progress to ensure that the task is completed efficiently and effectively without error.

As a result, your users' experience with a new application, once perceived as a mountain-climbing expedition, becomes more like a stroll in the park.

The Benefits: Accelerating Performance/Slashing Costs

Making the application easy to use speeds up users' acceptance, adoption, and productivity. Now they can

• » Be successful from Day One.
• » Focus on their jobs not on the application.
• » Accomplish their own goals while meeting those of the organization.
• » Be supported in their specific tasks within the organization's unique processes.

At the same time you dramatically reduce your costs and efforts related to

• » Non-productive time your employees spend in end-user training events.
• » Common user errors and error recovery efforts.
• » Lengthy rollouts and the time needed ensure user competence.

Try It Out

Test out the power of a C/RS Performance Support System, with this short example:
1099r IRS Form

The Technology: Ease of Access, Ease of Use

A C/RS PSS is easy for your users to access and use, and just as easy for you to deploy. It consists of a single javascript file that interacts with the application's browser interface on a user's screen. Your users can access the PSS at any time from an easy-to-install toolbar, customized to match their roles and tasks.

Because neither the script file nor the toolbar "touch" the application's code, there is little need for extensive IT support.

Award-Winning Concept

Recently, C/RS (in partnership with Rocketools, Inc., the creators of ActiveGuide, the enabling technology) received the prestigious Performance-Centered Design Award for their ground-breaking PSS design prototype, QuickSuccess for Salesforce (formerly the Salesforce.com Interactive Coach).

Intended for end-users of Salesforce, the popular hosted-CRM solution, QuickSuccess demonstrates how a PSS can make users competent in an application right from the start.

To learn more about QuickSuccess, click on the thumbnails on the sidebar, here for fuller details, here for a Flash animation showing QuickSuccess in action, and here to read what Dr. Allison Rossett had to say about it in her latest book, Job Aids & Performance Support Systems.

Next Step

Tell us your challenge in getting users up to competence. We'll be happy to discuss how Christensen/Roberts Solutions can help you. Ask us about our Fast Track program for enabling your organization to develop their own Performance Support Systems.
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