Reducing NTS’s mission-critical alert handling time by 70% through structured operational analysis

Why users reported no problem

The project started with a CIO who suspected untapped potential in his operational workflows. The first conversations were with senior users. They were unambiguous: the system was fine. No redesign needed.

This was not resistance to change. It was something more structural. The platform was an internal development — built, maintained and defended by the same people using it. People defending their own system do not describe its friction. They rationalize it.

Why observation beat interviews

Traditional user interviews would have produced nothing useful. The approach shifted to on-site observation across two locations, with sessions recorded on video for precise task analysis. This required renegotiating the project scope directly with the CIO — making the case for why observation would produce evidence that interviews could not. The CIO agreed. The methodology changed.

Separating power users from newcomers

The research design separated onboarding users from experienced power users from the outset — a methodological decision, not a logistical one. Power users had developed workarounds so ingrained they no longer registered as friction. New users experienced the system as it actually was.

Measuring hidden workflow cost

The video recordings were analyzed at task level to produce precise, defendable numbers where only impressions had existed before. Moving 14 alerts to a To-Do state required 28 drag-and-drop interactions and approximately 45 seconds. Repeated across thousands of daily interactions, this was a structural cost embedded invisibly in every working hour.

Different solutions for experts and newcomers

The recommendation for power users focused on interaction efficiency — replacing drag-and-drop with optimized patterns that reduced the same workflow to 14 clicks and a single keyboard shortcut. For users in onboarding, the recommendation addressed knowledge access: embedding operational knowledge directly into the workflow at the moment of decision, not as separate documentation.

From seconds saved to EBIT

The findings were not handed off. They were presented and argued directly in multiple management meetings. Average alert handling time dropped from 46 seconds to 13 seconds — a reduction of approximately 70%.

Leadership calculated the projected impact: the redesign amortized itself within five months, with an estimated EUR 3.2M in operational savings over five years and a projected EBIT improvement of +10%. These figures were presented publicly at the Parkside Open House alongside the project results.