{"id":4561,"date":"2014-02-18T02:41:42","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T02:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2014\/02\/18\/service-desk-staff-window-organization\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T15:53:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T15:53:35","slug":"service-desk-staff-window-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2014\/02\/18\/service-desk-staff-window-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"Service Desk staff \u2013 a window to the IT organization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe it sounds easy: hire a few people, teach them about the services we provide, tell them to be nice to the users\u2026 and there you go \u2013 Service Desk staff is in place. Or is it?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>At one time, one of my tasks was to provide users of the IT services with adequate support. Quite an interesting formulation, isn&#8217;t it? And it really is. Let me briefly describe the status quo that we had before implementation of Service Desk started. Maybe you will recognize some situations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Service Desk&#8221; didn\u2019t have formal organization, and communication with users was provided in the following ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Phone \u2013 every member of the IT department had their phone numbers listed in a local directory. And, that&#8217;s it. Find someone by department name (which is, in the case of the IT department, not that difficult) and chase him until you solve your issue(s).<\/li>\n<li>In person \u2013 everyone knew where IT was sitting. Since most of the users faced inefficiency and ignorance when action was needed, most of them played it safe \u2013 talk to IT in person and control it themselves.<\/li>\n<li>E-mail \u2013 when you drop a stone into a huge hole, what happens? Nothing. That was often the result \u2013 not always, but often \u2013 with e-mails users sent to IT.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sound like there is a need for change? Of course.<br \/>\n<div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">A few thoughts to start<\/h2>\n<p>In my case, and I believe that this is valid for most small and medium companies, Service Desk type was defined by the company\u2019s business model; i.e., I was supposed to build a local\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/knowledgebase\/service-desk-single-point-contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Service Desk<\/a>. And I was thinking about how to solve the next big challenge \u2013 the staffing issue. How many people, which profile, during which working hours\u2026<\/p>\n<p>In addition to using the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ITIL<\/a> approach, I had to find out more about users and their expectations. How? One of the methods that always works is to put yourself in the \u201cuser\u2019s shoes.\u201d In such a way you will get an idea about the user\u2019s expectations and be able to decide how to organize (from a staffing point of view) your Service Desk. Additionally, I spent a significant amount of time talking to users. My goal was to get an impression about their skill level, complexity of the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=sms-related-documents&amp;doc=list-of-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">services IT provided<\/a> to them and how services were supporting their business (this is probably the most important factor).<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">Gathering requirements<\/h2>\n<p>Requirements are essential, due to the fact that if you miss a requirement, you will miss the goals set for the Service Desk function (remember, Service Desk is one of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/05\/27\/service-operation-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">four functions defined in ITIL<\/a>. So, how to define them?<\/p>\n<p>My experience says \u2013 talk to the people. We organized meetings with people who already provided support: product managers, service managers, IT management staff&#8230; everyone involved in the IT services we needed to support. And, don&#8217;t forget the users.<\/p>\n<p>All of these people are experienced with the services, and they can tell you about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Existing support \u2013 how often do users require support, what kind of requirements are there.<\/li>\n<li>Technology \u2013 what kind of technological solutions need to be supported; i.e., what is the required level of expertise for the staff.<\/li>\n<li>Business goals \u2013 Service Level Manager can tell you about service levels that are agreed with the customer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">Staffing the Service Desk<\/h2>\n<p>Now, when there is enough information about users\u2019 behaviors and expectations, services, business goals, <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=relationship-and-agreement-processes&#038;doc=service-level-requirements\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">required service levels<\/a>, etc., then staffing the Service Desk should not be that difficult. Let me give you a few guidelines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Support hours<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 there is a big difference depending on whether the Service Desk provides support 24&#215;7 (24 hours a day, seven days a week) or 8&#215;5. This also greatly affects the required number of Service Desk staff. Another issue is to figure out how to support users during peak hours. Providing temporary staff is one possibility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Know-how<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Service Desk deals, primarily, with incidents. They need to be resolved as quickly as possible. Therefore, skilled Service Desk staff is one of the key requirements. Their know-how can be built by educating them (a tip: define who is responsible for staff\u2019s education for existing, as well as new services), but also by including more experienced staff (e.g., from 2<sup>nd<\/sup>\u00a0or 3<sup>rd<\/sup>\u00a0level support; i.e.,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/08\/05\/itil-problem-management-getting-rid-problems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Problem Management<\/a>\u00a0to be present at the Service Desk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tools<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 an efficient Service Desk is inconceivable without tools. There are tools that support most of the processes that Service Desk is involved with (e.g.,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/05\/21\/incident-management-itil-solid-foundations-operational-processes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Incident Management<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/04\/23\/elements-change-management-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Change Management<\/a>, Request Fulfillment,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/knowing-herd-service-asset-configuration-management-sacm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Service Asset and Configuration Management<\/a>\u00a0and tools that provide a knowledge base for IT staff, i.e., self-help for users.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other processes<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Besides <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=incident-management-process\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Incident Management<\/a> (incidents are Service Desk\u2019s primary occupation), Service Desk is integrated or involved in many other processes. For example, incidents trigger (i.e., provide input for) <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=problem-management-process\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Problem Management<\/a>. Efficient Problem Management will decrease the number of incidents in the future. So, it is important that the interface between those two processes is efficient.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ally<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 in bigger organizations, Key Users (or Super Users) can make life easier for Service Desk staff. These are people in a user\u2019s organization (i.e., not IT staff), usually most experienced with the service(s), who can provide first-level support to their colleagues, filter incidents toward Service Desk, <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=sms-related-documents&amp;doc=training-and-awareness-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">train\/educate<\/a> other users, etc.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;\">A window to IT<\/h2>\n<p>Service Desk is a \u201cwindow\u201d to the IT organization. Users don\u2019t see, e.g., developers. The only contact they have with IT is Service Desk. When users contact Service Desk, they should be satisfied with the provided service when the call is over. After all, they will judge the entire IT according to the service provided by Service Desk \u2013 and decide about paying IT\u2019s invoices.<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe it sounds easy: hire a few people, teach them about the services we provide, tell them to be nice to the users\u2026 and there you go \u2013 Service Desk staff is in place. Or is it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":17304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[416,344,360,385],"class_list":["post-4561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-incident","tag-itil","tag-service-desk","tag-service-operation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18360,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions\/18360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}