In 30 seconds

Interviews tell you what people remember. Observation shows you what they actually do, including the small steps that have become invisible through habit.

Watch a few real cases quietly, take notes, and ask your questions afterwards.

Why this comes up

Experienced people compress their work. A step they perform fifty times a day stops feeling like a step. When you ask them to describe the process, those automatic actions disappear from the description.

Observing catches them: the second screen they always check, the note they keep on paper, the colleague they quickly ask, the file they rename before saving.

How to observe well

Ask permission and explain why

Make it clear you are studying the work, not the person. People perform differently when they feel evaluated. Say plainly that you want to understand the real process so the eventual system does not get in their way.

Watch, do not interrupt

Let a case run from start to finish before asking questions. Interruptions change what happens next and hide the natural flow.

Note what they touch, not just what they decide

Write down every system, document, tab, message and person involved. The path information takes between systems is often where the real friction and duplicate work live.

Mark the pauses

When someone hesitates, that is usually a decision or an exception. Note it and ask about it later.

A small example

You watch someone handle an incoming order. The official process is "enter the order in the system."

Observation shows six actions: open the email, check the customer exists, copy details into the order form, look up a product code in an old spreadsheet, message a colleague to confirm stock, then enter the order. Five of those six steps never appeared in the written process.

That spreadsheet and that message are exactly the kind of detail a workflow design has to account for.

After observing

Play back what you saw and ask the person to correct it. Combine observation with an interview so you get both the actions and the reasoning behind them.

What this does not solve

Watching one person handle a few cases does not show you every variation. Different shifts, regions and difficult cases can work differently. Observe more than one person when those differences would change the design.

Good enough to move on when

  • You have watched at least one real case from start to finish.
  • You noted the systems, documents and people involved at each step.
  • You captured the small manual steps the official process omits.
  • The person agrees your notes reflect what they do.