One of my daily tasks is to align the expectation from user with the system.  In simply, I checked the code and tell the user what the system is doing.  In many case, it can be settled with knowing what the system behaves.  In others, user may trigger change request to improve the system.  

That’s my favourite task.  Coz’ I can then know how the user uses the system to handle their daily task.  Sometimes, I can dig some stories behind the scenes.  Sometimes politics Sometimes humanities.  And then it becomes the system history.  

My job is to keep the system clean and running across the changes.  These changes can be a technical change, a business change or even a political change.

The typical example of technical change nowadays is the upgrade of all users PC to Window 7.  Since the architecture evolves greatly in Window 7, all client programs need to upgrade.  The impact is IT department needs to upgrade all the systems accordingly.  With this chance, system reviews is a must…… (this’s sure a disaster coz’ you need to dig out all procedures).

To survive among the changes, managing the user expectations is the key.  These includes many soft skills such as listening, effective communication and cognitive impact to the user for your proposal.