How To Spot A Super User

Hey Trailblazers and welcome back to the Complete Lightning Migration Guide. Today we are talking about how to spot a super user. Your upcoming Lightning Migration will likely come with plenty of items for review, design decisions, and question marks on how items work. While you’re technical team is on hand to help build the new experience, super users will help you identify critical components and give insight on how to not just move to Lightning, but drive adoption and a great new user experience.

Join us as we talk about some key characteristics of super users and some hopefully helpful hints on getting them on board. 

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The Goals and Responsibilities of a Super User

Super users are pivotal in a great Lightning Migration. Their key responsibilities include:

  • Help explain current functionality
  • Bring light to pain points
  • Provide insight in to worthwhile enhancements
  • Help paint the picture of an amazing Salesforce Implementation

Tricks to Spot Super Users

Finding Super Users can be tricky. You want them to be enthusiastic, communicate well and have some of the charateristics below. Here are a couple strategies to help find them:

  1. Ask for volunteers: great super users may have a lot on their plate, but when it comes to building a better interface they are motivated and may be willing to add one more item to their to do list
  2. Check in with your leaders: when you hire new people, who do you recommend as a trainer? See if they are interested. 
  3. Nominations: Ask for teams to nominate team mates that helped them speed up their day to day
  4. The old guard: look for the users that have been through the process for a while and are fine with the way things are, but is sympathetic when others complain. 

Characteristics of a Super User

Salesforce Champion

The user accepts Salesforce is not perfect, but finds the good in it. Where others talk about making an excel sheet or other software, this user is ready to see how close Salesforce is to solving the pain point without leaving Salesforce.

The Curious Teammate

A great super user is one that is already curious about why the system is built the way it is and pushes to learn the full capabilities of Salesforce.  Leaving them with an unexplained button is cruel and unusual punishment. 

The Life Hacker

These users are the ones who seem to find every trick there is to make life easier. As long as they’ve checked the boxes and done the job, they have whittled the to do list to be as short as possible. They customize their app tabs, fill up their favorites and/or have some nifty report tricks.

The Team Player

This user is still engaged enough to see the posibility of ideas. If the user consistently wants to avoid meetings about the Migration, squashes other ideas, and/or tries to diminish pain points as not worth solving it can have a chilling effect on the group and can hurt adoption.

How to Spot Super User Traits

To spot super users look for users on two ends of the spectrum. Those that lead the group, new users naturally gravitate toward them. When questions are asked of the group they tend to be among the first to speak up. When they do speak others may nod unconsciously in agreement. On the other end of the spectrum we have the users who accept Salesforce, but are quick to find faults with it. These are the “Why” group. “Why do I have to log this?”, “Why do I have to enter that?”. They get their work done, but pull no punches when it comes to the lack of Salesforce system capabilities.

Spot Your Super Team

We identified four characteristics of super users, but no one super user will have them all. Each team member should bring at least one of the qualities to the table and make sure you don’t build your team of only one type. While it may be easy to identify users that consistently deliver their work on time, the super users should all bring something more. It should also be noted super users are not always the best test users. The previously identified consistently delivering users are the real powerhouse when it comes to testing, we’ll talk more about them in future articles. 

Building Your Super Team

To build your super team I generally recommend the 75/25 group. Where 75 percent of the group are going to be active champions and 25 percent are the users that are frustrated with Salesforce, but care enough to want to try for a better system. 

How To Tell A Group Is Gelling

A good super user team is easy to spot in their body language and communication. Smiles, open posture, nodding in agreement and even quizzical expressions are all signs the users feel comfortable working together. This doesn’t mean they always agree, not agreeing will absolutely help design. The key ingredient is communicating despite differences in ideas. You may find your super users “ganging up” on the developers. They have things they want the system to do and have bonded over the vision. The result of this bond is passion and enthusiasm that will help lead the overall team during the transition.

When Things Don’t Fit

Sometimes we identify our super users and find they just don’t make a super team. When a user consistently dominate the group, collaboration may slow and the migration feels a lot harder to see. First off, don’t worry. It can be really hard to know how people will interact if they do not consistently work together or haven’t worked on something like this before.

teamwork

 

Step one: identify the core of the group. Which users seem to communicate easily and feed off of each others ideas? Now who tends to cause conversations to stop? You may find you have pockets of collaboration that don’t work as the whole.

Step two: divide the work. A Lightning migration comes with a lot of little pieces. If the group isn’t designing well together, give them opportunities to design in smaller groups.

Step three: swap and share. Many times collaboration gets stalled because users are having a hard time articulating in a way everyone understands and the frustration of not feeling understood can come across as being controlling or aggressive. Allowing users to talk in smaller groups can help them refine the idea before they face those who didn’t understand what they meant. 

 

Non Super User

An Odd Man Out

Sometimes the group doesn’t divide into two and there is just one person who seems to chill the conversation. Don’t be in a rush to take them out of the initiative. Instead flip the script and have them design to solve on their own and then fold those ideas in to the group. 

Communication, Communication, Communication

It has come up many times through the article but it makes sense to call it out specifically. The best Super Users and Super User Teams are ones that communicate. If you communicate with them and ensure they are communicating well design designs, prioritization, and to dos will work themself out very smoothly. 

The Final Skill

The final skill everyone in the migration team needs? The ability to make it fun. Opportunities for things to be better, work to be easier, new communication lines being opened – are all fun and exciting. A positive and fun outlook on a Lightning Migration doesn’t just make the process go smoother, it helps build better systems, better teams, and better adoption down the road.

Learn more about Lightning Migrations with our Lightning Migration Group: https://sfdcstudy.org/groups/lightning-migration/

Stay safe trailblazers, we’ll see  you on the Trail