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2015-02-17
Further Similarities Between Medical Professional and Software Support

I recently saw a medical professional and saw similarities between the process that is (or needs to be) used between medical services and software support services.

The medical person examined me and then started to make recommendations of what I should do to address my problems…
…wait Wha?!?… I had missed something. Somewhat similar to my experience I wrote with this other medical experience: “It’s Important for a Tech Support Person to Write Down the Answer for the Customer” ( http://wieldlinux.com/?p=18 )

I didn’t know my problem was confirmed, didn’t know what the problem was, and hadn’t asked how to address the problem. But the medical professional was telling me how to fix it.

I wished it instead had gone like this: After the examination, the professional tell me 1. A problem has been confirmed. 2. what the problem is. 3. What is causing the problem. 4. What They can do to help me address the problem, and what I can do.

And during this dialog of education, leave space for me to ask my own questions for example maybe pause for me to ask the question “what can be done to address this problem?…”

Conclusion: I was frustrated how I wasn’t included in the diagnosis and the diagnosis wasn’t explained to me before starting to explain the prescribed remedy/action.

In the same way, Software Customer Support Professionals also must be able to communicate the above four informations to their users, *and check at each step along the way that the software user understands*.


[2019 edit: Moved to: https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2015/... .html.]