Support Strategies: Mastering Help Desk Excellence

Dive into support excellence with "Support Strategies: Mastering Help Desk Excellence." Uncover articles dissecting help desk support, sharing proven strategies, and innovative approaches. As part of our blog, it's your compass for navigating the complexities of help desk operations, offering valuable guidance for support professionals, IT enthusiasts, and business owners.

Who Does What? How to Quickly Adopt ITIL Roles and Responsibilities

ITIL Roles & Responsibilities

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The ITIL Guru sat at his desk, looking over the latest monthly IT performance summary. Since he was the Continuous Improvement Practice advisor, he tried to make sense of it. The phone rang.

"Good morning. How may I help you?"

"Hi, Guru. I am the new CIO, Bill. I met with the executive board today. After investing in an ITSM (IT Service Management) tool and ITIL 4 Foundation training, the board is concerned that our IT performance has not significantly improved. I understand that you came to our company with a lot of ITIL experience. Do you have any insights?"

"I was reviewing the performance summary when you called. You are right, and the reports do not show a significant change. There is only one reason for such an overall result. We have not fully embraced ITIL through roles and responsibilities."

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What is SLM? ITIL Service Level Management: Meaning, Purpose and Process

ITIL Service Level management (SLM)

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The ITIL Guru sat at his desk, looking over the latest additions in the Continuous Improvement Register (CIR). As a CIR review board member, he liked what he saw -- more IT staff contributing improvement ideas, making him feel good about the progress. The phone rings.

"ITIL Guru. How may I assist you today?"

"Hi Guru, this is Betty. I want your help. The CIO asked me to come to her office tomorrow. She wants me to take over the role of practice owner for Service Level Management (SLM). Since the previous owner did not communicate very often to IT, I don't know what the practice does or accomplishes. Can you give me your expert opinion about the role of SLM?"

"Betty, I am always happy to help explain ITIL.

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Essential Change Management Roles and Responsibilities

Change Management Roles and Responsibilities

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The ITIL Guru sat at his desk, looking over the latest additions in the Continuous Improvement Register (CIR). As a review board member, he liked what he saw. More and more IT staff contribute improvement ideas, making him feel good about the progress. The phone rang.

 "ITIL Guru. How may I assist you today?"

"This is Michael. The CIO requested that I come to her office tomorrow. She wants me to take over the role of Change Manager. Her text does not appear clear about the new Change Enablement practice. Can you help me to make a good impression?"

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What Are the 7 ITIL-Guiding Principles

7 Guiding Principle of ITIL

The IT Infrastructure Library, abbreviated as ITIL®, is a library of guidelines that were first introduced by the British government's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) during the 1980s that outlines a complete list of best practices to be adopted for delivering IT services. The guiding principles listed in ITIL have undergone several revisions over time after they were first introduced and currently include five books, each dealing with different aspects of IT services, with one unit of the ITIL System focusing on the 7 guiding principles.

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The Complete Help Desk Technician Job Description & How To Become One

Help Desk Technician

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Help desk technician is a job that does not seem to be talked about enough. It is an essential position in any business, and it is not going anywhere anytime soon. Those in these positions often work in the IT department of an organization but can also be employed by a software company or other vendors that sell computer-related products and services to businesses.

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How to Use the Balanced Scorecard Approach to Achieve World-Class Service Desk Performance

Balanced Scorecard

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The troubled Service Desk manager called the ITIL Guru and asked to see her right away. When he arrived, he had a panicked look on his face. The ITIL Guru calmly asked, "What has got your feathers ruffled?"

The manager said, "I just received an email from the CIO asking about my department's metrics. He says that they don't look great compared to top service desks. Before I respond, I wanted to get your opinion."

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Operational Level Agreements (OLAs): The Foundation to Every Service Level Agreement (SLA)

ITIL ITSM OLS vs. SLA

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The Service Desk Manager arrived at the ITIL Service Manager's office and found her staring out the window. He politely knocked, and the manager invited him to sit down, saying, "Glad to see you back. How is your SLA project going?"

"Progressing, thanks to your guidance."

"That is great! Tell me what you have done so far."

"I met with several key business leaders and explained the project and what a Service Level Agreement is. They are excited about us addressing their critical needs, and they are looking forward to a continuous improvement process partnership. However, I am not experiencing the same excitement from the various IT departments. I thought they would love to know what the business needs."

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How to Define & Measure ITSM Critical Success Factors (CSF) with SLAs & KPIs

ITSM Critical Success Factors with SLAs & KPIs

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When the young man arrived at the ITIL Service Manager's office, he found her reading a book. He politely knocked, and the manager invited him to sit down, saying, "What can I do for you?"

The young man said, "My manager asked me to write an SLA for my Service Desk, and I don't know where to start. Another manager told me you know everything there is to know about IT best practices."

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IT Change Management Stakeholders: The Complete How & Why of Identifying & Analyzing

ITSM Stakeholder Identification & Analysis

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Introduction: Why are stakeholders important?

Stakeholder feedback into Continuous Improvement Practice is the best and fastest way to transform Information Technology (IT) into a strategic asset for your company.

This article focuses on examining ITIL® Change Management stakeholders, who they are, the analysis of them, and why it is important, and the countless opportunities to gain insight into what to improve from stakeholder feedback.

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Shift-Left Analysis & How-To Guide: Maximize IT Service Management (ITSM) Efficiency

Shift Left ITSM

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Discover the meaning, principles & benefits of the Shift-Left support model approach & best-practice implementation strategies

IT departments have always lived in a world of balancing two opposing activities with limited resources:

  1. Maintaining user productivity by responding when something breaks (an Incident) or a user request for services (a Service Request).
  2. "Maximizing the number of successful service and product changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed and authorizing changes." 1

What makes this juggling a challenge is the same high-level skills for planning, testing, and implementing changes are also the same resources required for resolving more complicated escalated incidents. Anyone that works in IT is familiar with firefighting interruptions. You are in your cube with your head around a time-sensitive change project when you receive a new incident that cannot wait. If you only had more people, then you could split the tasks between project management people and operational people. But is that really going to happen? So, what does happen is that you take the time to help out the users and skimp on the change project because projects are also time sensitive.

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