Suppose you have a Laserfiche implementation at your organization at some point. You may realize that IT or one of the Laserfiche usage-heavy departments will need to "own" the system. Beyond that, it's good practice to assign ownership to one person within that department. Sometimes there is a natural and obvious fit for the role, and often, there is not, so you need to hire or pull a resource from within. This article clarifies some of the skills and characteristics of this person—based on three decades of Laserfiche training, hundreds of implementations, and hiring our own Laserfiche experts.
I also mentioned that I've seen many Laserfiche hires happen through "whisper networks." This means the candidate comes from an organization that uses Laserfiche or works for a Laserfiche partner. For this blog post, let us assume this is not comfortable recruiting.
Big picture: you are looking for someone to bridge the gap between the department that owns Laserfiche and the rest of the organization, using data and reporting to assess onboarding readiness, determine requirements, and deliver recommendations to stakeholders and leadership.
This individual should engage with users and management on how automation of processes with Laserfiche can improve efficiencies and increase the ROI of the product. This person should work to grow and enhance the Laserfiche implementation. In short, this person should act as a change agent for the organization's digitization effort. This position requires many of the same skills and requirements as a business analyst, so I suggest you entitle the role as Laserfiche analyst.
Writing a job description.
Writing a job description can be difficult. According to data from a survey conducted with HR professionals throughout North America., The top 5 sections that are hard to get "right" on a job description are Competencies, Responsibilities, Skills, Abilities, and Knowledge. Sometimes, the hiring manager, HR, and senior management are on different pages. Additionally, some applicant hiring technologies sometimes weed out candidates that the hiring manager would want to interview. That's a fraught and complex problem for this article, but I thought we should mention it. Here are some requirements you should consider when writing your job description:
Strong understanding of gathering evolving regulatory and reporting requirements
Identifying and then prioritizing technical and functional requirements
Understanding of KPIs
Creating detailed business workflow analysis, outlining problems and solutions
Defining business requirements and reporting them back to stakeholders
Planning and monitoring
Project management
Skills
Your future Laserfiche person will require hard and soft skills. Not all Laserfiche analysts need a background in IT as long as they have a general understanding of how ECM systems, products, and tools work. Alternatively, some Laserfiche analysts have a strong IT background and less experience in business and are interested in shifting away from IT. I should mention that I've worked with excellent Laserfiche analysts with varied business, IT, and municipal process backgrounds. Some of the essential skills and experience for a business analyst are:
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Good interpersonal and consultative skills
Flexible problem-solving skills
Process modeling
Understanding of process modeling
Be organized and detail-oriented
Can work effectively with both IT and business departmental staff
Capable of accurately calculating ROI and cost-benefit analysis
I hope this was helpful. We look forward to training your new Laserfiche analyst!
