Opportunity What Is Full Organizational Observability?

Full organizational observability is the combination of system, user, and business observability

Business observability entails the ability to monitor customer and employee activities, diagnose problems, and make improvements that impact business results.

What Is Full Org Observability?

Full organizational observability results from integrating three traditionally separate capabilities.

Businesses have studied customer and employee behavior and adjusted services to increase revenue and satisfaction since long before the process was digital. The earliest version of observability was face-to-face, when businesses monitored customers in the store and employees in the workplace. But new processes evolved with new technologies. “Customer experience management” emerged in the early 2000s based on platforms to manage digital experiences, while “employee experience management” platforms continue to gain momentum in an increasingly work-from-anywhere world.

User observability entails the ability to monitor user interactions, diagnose problems, and make improvements that impact business experiences.

User experience professionals excel at observing people as they interact with software. While interaction designers commonly use insights from usability tests and other research to update user interfaces, user experience professionals can apply those same insights to improve business value or system performance.

System observability entails the ability to monitor application and infrastructure performance, diagnose problems, and make improvements that affect user experiences and other business results.

Automated analysis now makes the vital tasks of monitoring application and infrastructure performance easier with real-time data. IT teams can manage their systems more efficiently and detect potential user frustration based on how they interact with their devices—immediately alerting them to system outages or slowdowns.

Digital experiences are not easy to observe, however.

Digital Challenges

Digital transformations have numerous benefits but adding layers of technology makes staying in touch with customers and employees more difficult.

Are they having good or bad experiences? How long will it take for you to find out? What parts of the system are helping—or hurting?

Someone might notice errors or abnormal performance in a complex system, but not the human-level impact of that error. For example, if IT notices an outage while the call center fields numerous complaints about the same issue, someone needs to connect the dots and conclude that the outage affects a crucial business process. Performance problems are even harder to track to a specific user or business impact.

In competitive markets, companies may not even realize when their poor digital experiences drive potential customers to competitors. In the workplace, employees might revert to a manual or ad hoc process to do their job after an adverse digital experience with an application. Businesses might see reduced sales or low adoption rates as a result, but were the underlying causes usability problems or system performance issues?

Technology stacks bring complexities. Observing digital experiences from diverse viewpoints and collaborating across business units takes a concerted effort. Remember: Quality customer service requires a balance between automated processes and a human touch.