In large migration and IT infrastructure change projects (such as migrating users to Windows 11), strategy development and decision-making are often centred on technology.
Back in the technology olden days (i.e., a few years ago), it was all about checking system requirements and hardware compatibility when upgrading users and devices to a newer operating system version.
Then Windows 11 came along and everyone in IT engineering and operations started swotting up on TPM security chip technologies and the uncompromising Windows 11 requirement for TPM 2.0.
Before we could even finish our TPM education, AI technologies catapulted themselves into Windows 11 upgrade conversations. Microsoft became the fastest of fast AI adopters, integrating AI into its products at breakneck speed and even adding a new key to our keyboards! Windows 11 migration strategies and decisions were understandably influenced, especially in relation to moving users to Microsoft’s Windows 11 and AI-ready Windows 365/Cloud PC solution.
Meanwhile, the hardware side of the equation was being challenged with the need for more processing firepower to handle AI. Chip manufacturers raised their game to ensure Windows 11 devices could run AI technologies without compromising the CPU and memory that Windows needs.
What’s Missing?
So here we are, but what’s missing?
As summarised above, the last couple of years has been a story of rapid, exciting, and groundbreaking technology innovation that means you can now move your organisation away from Windows 10 (and older) devices chugging away on outdated technologies and into the new, fast, AI-powered, productivity-enhancing Windows 11 era.
But there is a missing element in the story – users.
How do you migrate users to Windows 11, whether on a physical device or a VDI solution?
More specifically, how do you really migrate users currently on a variety of platforms in a way that is efficient and effective? What about individual requirements in organisations with thousands of users to migrate? What about DEX? And how do you right-size desktop environments on a user-by-user basis?
You need personas!
The Traditional Approach
Personas have been around as a concept in IT for quite some time, but they are an issue that has not been fully exploited, resolved, or utilised (depending on your viewpoint).
The core of the problem is:
- How do you create desktop environments customised for users?
- How do you do this at scale?
- How do you keep on top of it all when things change so much and so fast?
Here’s an example that highlights the problem – a new employee joining the finance department. How do you decide which applications and permissions this new user needs?
The easiest and most common approach (especially in large organisations) is to identify a comparable user, i.e., an existing employee that you believe has similar technology needs and requirements. You then give the new employee a desktop environment cloned from the existing employee.
Sounds straightforward, but not only are you cloning relevant apps and permissions from the existing employee but you are also cloning all the old stuff accumulated by the user over time but that is no longer needed.
The end result is the new employee gets a shiny new login ID and email address with an unnecessarily bloated desktop environment. This problem is compounded over time and becomes next to impossible to manage.
What Are Personas?
What if you could allocate users into groups known as personas, and then assign applications and permissions to those personas?
A persona is a representation of an imagined user. They are a common concept in product design and marketing. In fact, as you are reading this blog, you fit into one of Access IT Automation’s personas, which means you’re our kind of people.
Personas let you group users around specific requirements and characteristics with a focus on DEX.
So, when a new user joins, they get put into the most relevant persona. This ensures they get a clean desktop environment containing only the applications and permissions they need, without the unnecessary baggage.
And you can make your personas dynamic so they can be adjusted according to business needs and how users are actually using their desktops and applications.
Implementing Personas
With solutions like our Access Capture and Access Symphony products, you can continuously monitor user, device, and application performance. This information can then be used to optimise your personas by cleaning up old permissions, removing unused applications, and ensuring users have the level of hardware performance they need. For users on VDI environments, hardware performance can be scaled as required without the user even requesting it.
The result of implementing personas in this way includes a reduction in tickets, improved DEX, and enhanced productivity. Right-size desktop environments can also save you money on VDI subscriptions, and new versions of applications can be pushed or made available to users (through automated app packaging, testing, and publishing) to ensure everyone is using the latest technologies.
We can’t ignore the major drivers of large-scale migrations such as Windows 11 upgrades, i.e., AI, Cloud PCs, modern GPUs, etc. Personas lets you also keep an efficient, automated, scalable, and long-term manageable focus on users.
