The total experience: Do we need Total Experience (TX)?
Attention, buzzword alert: recently the term "Total Experience", abbreviated TX, has been circulating as an important trend. When I was still programming, we used to build user interfaces (UI). In the decade that was no longer enough, there was UX (user experience). And now the "total experience"?
But here's the surprising thing: If we look at the idea behind TX and leave out all the hype, there is an interesting idea behind the concept. Albeit one that we as systems engineers have known for a long time. But when the boss shows up at the door with TX, we should have an answer ready.
Buzz from the big management consultancies
The usual suspects are already hyping up the hype behind TX. This is how Gartner named it as one of the current twelve IT trends, KPMG takes a similar view.
Management consultancies in particular have long since applied the "X" beyond the technical context. They have long since introduced terms such as customer experience (CX) or employee experience (EX), which sit nicely alongside user experience. What could be more obvious than taking a holistic view of all these experiences?
The picture of Virtuos embedded here shows quite nicely what it's all about:
Systems engineering has always been holistic
A holistic view has always been the task of systems engineering. From this perspective, Total Experience is nothing really new. However, the scope of TX is broader than systems engineering, as it is intended to be applied to the entire organization.
When decision-makers jump on the TX bandwagon, there is a risk that they will try to impose it on Systems Engineering. And this could cause a problem if they forget that Systems Engineering is already familiar with the concept of TX in its own scope. This is because systems engineering has always focused on the stakeholder.
The solution proposed by Virtuos is not new either, namely the question of why. Just top left in the V-model is about the problem world, in which we deliberately leave out the "how".
That's why it's important for us as systems engineers to capture the minds of decision-makers when they suddenly want to introduce TX.
Using experience from systems engineering
We need to convey to decision-makers that systems engineering is already mature. Systems Engineering is in a good position to support the spread of TX in the organization. If the leadership of the organization is really serious (and underlines the seriousness with a budget), then there is a lot of potential here. And if Systems Engineering takes a leading role here, then the risk of many achievements being overturned is reduced.
Nevertheless, I fear that TX will remain a brief hype in many companies that will be replaced by something else the year after next. That shouldn't stop us from practicing TX - even without the hip acronym.
