scandals of an ITian

Over the last 2 weeks I had selected a total of 3 users from my colleagues, who had the privilege of having their systems rebuilt with Windows 7. If I had to scale their true IT acumen they varied between from “got a grasp on things” to “nah I need a hand all the way through”.

What was their task? Well to bloody hell hit the road running from the very second they got their systems back with as little help from me.

And how did they do? Well then read on…

Brief description of their systems:-

1. Brand new Toshiba Satellite Pro P300
2. Two Brand new Lenovo
3. One Asus Laptop, most probably a couple of years old

What do my test subjects do?

1. Two of the participants belong to a team that does a lot of remote work. Mobility, comfort, stability and Office applications to be running at full steam.
2. One of the participants was my GM. Now come on, do I want to be screwing around with the bosses system?

Software’s installed on their systems?

1. Windows 7 Ultimate
2. Office 2007 SP2 Edition
3. Trend Micro Client
4. Foxit PDF Reader

Resources being utilized?

1. Part of the Essential Business Server domain.
2. Monitored using System Centre Essentials 2007
3. AV, AntiSpyWare, Firewall monitoring by Trend Worry Free Business Security Advanced Edition (LAN and Remote)
4. Microsoft Exchange server 2007
5. Forefront Threat Management Gateway for Edge security
6. Windows 2008 Standard File Server

The following were the criteria that I had put in front of them at the end of the 2 weeks in the form of an excel sheet for them to fill out. Since all of them have a busy schedule I kept my questions and the depth of the answers that I expected from them to a minimum. But I also tried to keep in mind all the issues that normal users that I have always heard would complain about their systems, though the issue would be something not at all related to their specific system sometimes. The scope of the questions might be quite general but what I intended on achieving at the end of this was:-

1. To see and hear what impression Windows 7 would have on my users
2. Would it be the solution for our environment and to help me slowly build a business case based on their feedback.
3. To make the users aware of such a product so that in time they may be able to give an opinion to someone else based on their experience.

To identify where Windows 7 would most likely have a positive or negative impact on them, I classified it under

1. Speed
2. Usability
3. User Experience
4. Past Experience doing the same task
5. Moving forward

The table below was filled out by each one of them. I have only aggregated them and tried to word using their own wherever possible.

Well there you go. These were the responses from the three users.

Damage:

Had to buy them coffee. Not once but twice. I don’t think I can even get it reimbursed J

This is the email that I had sent the survey form along with:

Hi ,

I shall start with smooth talking my way through this. COFFEE OFFER STILL STANDS! One of your colleagues has already claimed her prize with a special offer not for one but “2″ hot chocolates.

You would be a helping a struggling MBA student get some assignments done by getting this really small excel survey completed and sent back to him to redeem the ” Coffee to your table” offer. This survey is just a generic one. and I promise there won’t be any other for a while . Likewise you can ignore my last email on this topic.

So hopefully I would have to get you all your coffees on Monday morning since you guys would have sent the completed form back to me by end of Business day today. I knew I could count on you guys.

Cheers

Aben Samuel

Now who could resist an email like that??

Hope you enjoyed the post.

Windows 7 from a layman’s eye, 10.0 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

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