Colrows' official SSP Group case stated that the tourism hub catering retail enterprise used a unified platform to connect SQL, shared notebooks, conversational queries and Slack, and retired its original first-line data tools. Its customer work overview lists this project as completed forward deployment delivery, and the service page clearly states that it was built by Forward-deployed engineers and customers. This article publishes research based on suppliers and has not independently verified the results.
First look at which job the old tool has undertaken
The following is ChinaOPC’s independent analysis and is not SSP’s undisclosed operation process. An internal tool may only display a few pieces of data, but it already saves frontline employees the steps of selecting data ranges, understanding fields, or finding the person in charge. When preparing for replacement, you can ask the user to restore the most recently completed tasks to see what questions they started with, what they checked along the way, and who they handed it off to in the end.
For example, an employee asking whether the data for a certain activity has been updated may only need to confirm which time the current record covers; analysts may also want to check the data source and abnormal changes. Two people can use the same information, but see different results. Directly handing over the query interface that engineers are familiar with to all positions may not be able to continue the original help of old tools.
For a small team to provide implementation services, you can first draw the work around a frequently occurring problem: who proposes, who adds information, who checks the results, and who decides the next step. This kind of discussion can help customers identify the links that originally relied on verbal explanations, and then decide which parts should be taken up at the entrance of the conversation.
When sharing queries, you should also bring your usage background with you.
The original case introduces shared notebooks and Slack result delivery. When studying similar methods, you can pay attention to whether a query or analysis is taken over by someone else and whether you can still understand the question being answered at that time. With only a number or a screenshot of the results, the recipient may not know the scope, timing of the data, or what remains to be confirmed.
The background to the question, the range of data used and necessary explanations can be passed along with the results. If someone later raises a new question with a different purpose, you should re-judge whether the original query can continue to be used. A result compiled for activity observation does not automatically apply to all stores and all business decisions just because it has been shared. This is a service design suggestion, and it cannot be inferred that the SSP has adopted these specific fields.
If the explanation is unclear at the dialogue entrance, you can also hand the question along with the reviewed data to the corresponding analyst. Once the receiver sees the questioning process, it will be easier for the person taking over to judge whether they need to supplement data, change the query, or learn more about the business. Asking users to re-describe the problem repeatedly will bring the breakpoints between the original tools into the new platform.
Use the original task to check the new working method
When the old tool is ready to be retired, it allows the user to carry out the original task again in the new environment. Observe what additional information needs to be asked, how the results are understood, and whether the next collaborator can continue the work. Such a trial is suitable for discovering an inconspicuous instruction or entry that is relied upon repeatedly, rather than just confirming that the page can be opened.
If the new portal can answer the question, but requires another person to manually sort it out before it can continue to be processed, this work should be left in the process as it is, and then judge whether it is worth accessing. It can also be an explicit choice to keep some manual arrangements in stages, and steps that have not yet been covered cannot be written as fully automated.
SSP cases openly describe the replacement of existing systems, not just product introductions or job recruitment. It did not provide enough original project materials for ChinaOPC to verify each benefit, model, deployment date and full customer application scope. This article does not apply the general delivery cycle of Colrows service pages to SSP, nor does it promise that small teams will achieve the same results according to the organizational needs of large enterprises.
Extended reading: How does FDE co-creation define business problems and How does paid trial order agree on the learning scope, respectively, to understand the problem definition and the actual trial within a limited scope.