Journal
Seven stakeholder questions that sharpen a usage assessment
Good usage assessments depend on better questions, not denser extracts. These seven prompts consistently uncover what logs alone miss.
Logs show activity; people explain purpose. We open every assessment with a short interview set that stays the same across projects so findings remain comparable.
Ask what success looked like when the application was approved. Ask which neighboring tools would absorb the work if this one disappeared tomorrow. Ask who is blamed when numbers disagree across systems. Ask where people still export to spreadsheets even after training.
Two questions about access rarely appear on standard checklists: who can grant seats without a recorded request, and who still has break-glass credentials from a past incident. Those answers often explain spikes and dormancy better than any dashboard filter.
Close by asking what the stakeholder would refuse to change even if usage looked poor. Protecting that constraint keeps recommendations politically realistic and more likely to be adopted.