mksnake
Sep 5, 2009
Graduate / MBA behavioral essay: "Went beyond what was defined" [4]
I would appreciate your feedback on my essay. Does my essay answer the question asked, and does it bring across my personal characteristics in an easy to understand manner? The business school is not looking for lessons learned in this essay, just the facts and my actions.
Essay: Please describe a time when you went beyond what was defined, expected, established, or popular. (500 words or less, limited to one page)
Our users lacked the required training and knowledge to use our engineering software product properly. Our user manuals, the only available documentation for our product, were the main cause of this problem. These manuals were frequently created quite late, took a lot of time to be updated and did not allow getting feedback from our users to improve our manuals. Most users did not read these manuals and hence did not know how to use our product properly, resulting in numerous support calls and a general feeling that our product was too complex.
My department had been creating manuals this way since many years. In 200X, I started a project to improve our user manuals, knowing that changing this way of working would require going beyond the defined and established way.
I first concentrated on generating support for the project. I talked to people who were interested in improving our user manuals and got them involved as team members. I also initiated discussions on current problems with our user manuals, helping people become aware of these problems.
After analysing the current situation and problems, I and my team started introducing changes. Business analysts, who specified the software product, would now create the manuals during the product testing phase. This would make the manuals available as soon as the product was released. The manuals would also be moved onto a Wiki, a dynamic website where any user can create or change any content. This would make our manuals more modular, easy to search through and facilitate getting feedback from users by allowing them to make changes to the content, although without any review and approval process.
There was resistance to the new ways of working and especially the absence of a review process on the Wiki. After talking to them and understanding their requirements, I introduced an innovative reactive-review process which no one had tried before. An administrator would review the changes made to the content after they were made, and roll them back if needed. I then managed the pilot implementation of the new process, with encouraging results. These results convinced everyone to implement the changes.
Our user manuals have improved substantially after the changes were implemented. The Wiki is now the standard help system for our users, with users actively improving the content. Manuals on new features are delivered well in time. Our product was also acknowledged recently as one which requires the least user support.
I would appreciate your feedback on my essay. Does my essay answer the question asked, and does it bring across my personal characteristics in an easy to understand manner? The business school is not looking for lessons learned in this essay, just the facts and my actions.
Essay: Please describe a time when you went beyond what was defined, expected, established, or popular. (500 words or less, limited to one page)
Our users lacked the required training and knowledge to use our engineering software product properly. Our user manuals, the only available documentation for our product, were the main cause of this problem. These manuals were frequently created quite late, took a lot of time to be updated and did not allow getting feedback from our users to improve our manuals. Most users did not read these manuals and hence did not know how to use our product properly, resulting in numerous support calls and a general feeling that our product was too complex.
My department had been creating manuals this way since many years. In 200X, I started a project to improve our user manuals, knowing that changing this way of working would require going beyond the defined and established way.
I first concentrated on generating support for the project. I talked to people who were interested in improving our user manuals and got them involved as team members. I also initiated discussions on current problems with our user manuals, helping people become aware of these problems.
After analysing the current situation and problems, I and my team started introducing changes. Business analysts, who specified the software product, would now create the manuals during the product testing phase. This would make the manuals available as soon as the product was released. The manuals would also be moved onto a Wiki, a dynamic website where any user can create or change any content. This would make our manuals more modular, easy to search through and facilitate getting feedback from users by allowing them to make changes to the content, although without any review and approval process.
There was resistance to the new ways of working and especially the absence of a review process on the Wiki. After talking to them and understanding their requirements, I introduced an innovative reactive-review process which no one had tried before. An administrator would review the changes made to the content after they were made, and roll them back if needed. I then managed the pilot implementation of the new process, with encouraging results. These results convinced everyone to implement the changes.
Our user manuals have improved substantially after the changes were implemented. The Wiki is now the standard help system for our users, with users actively improving the content. Manuals on new features are delivered well in time. Our product was also acknowledged recently as one which requires the least user support.