The IT Skeptic - service desk

Dont blame the tool: squeeze the asset, fix the behaviour

skeptic — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:05:06 +0000

Organisations are far too quick to blame their software tools for their woes.

What is the best ITIL service desk tool?

skeptic — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 21:19:37 +0000

I'm surprised that folk can say "X is the best" when they have no idea of someone's requirements.

If you evaluate a tool based on features, you're doing it wrong.

What is a service desk?

skeptic — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 23:48:23 +0000

I see endless statements about the "death of the service desk". FFS MAKE IT STOP. The people who make these statements exhibit a pathetic understanding of service management.

In service support, changing the channel changes little

skeptic — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 23:22:26 +0000

I'm all for improving the support channels, and social media can do that. But don't confuse that with any fundamental change in how we do - and ought to do - service support.

Chicken ITle calls out the end of Service Desk

skeptic — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:41:20 +0000

As part of my ongoing theme of Slow IT, I'm introducing a new character to the blog, Chicken ITle (how appropriate just before Easter). Chicken ITle draws our attention to those who announce catastrophic consequences for IT if we don't all rush off and do something. Usually these sky-falling folk are either analysts or vendors, because both profit from fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

Service desks and spontaneous user combustion

skeptic — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:24:56 +0000

There is much talk about users spontaneously creating their own communities for mutual technical support. This phenomenon of spontaneous user support is presented as a threat to IT. We're told that if we don't do something to engage these communities then they will render IT redundant. The absurdity of this shouldn't need explanation but apparently it does. I'll deal with that separately (I started here). Never mind the absurdity of the predicted consequences, does it ever happen?

What will affect the service desk over the next three years

skeptic — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:20:20 +0000

Malcolm Fry asked me this question for his Session 602 The Service Desk: Past, Present & Future at the upcoming HDI conference in the USA. His question reminded me that I have been off in the philosophical never-never for too long. It is high time I got back to the bread-and-butter folks at the pointy front end of IT: the service desk team. So here are my thoughts on Malcolm's excellent question: What will affect the service desk over the next three years? Tweet this.
[Updated 25/2/13: added Bring Your own App and internal social media]

Examining the 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Service Desk

skeptic — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 02:18:57 +0000

Gartner have released a new Magic Quadrant for service desk. Get it from BMC or EasyVista (reg req). It is delightfully challenging (for a skeptic) but also disappointing.

The sorry tale of Infra: will VMWare kill it?

skeptic — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 23:50:24 +0000

VMWare are maintaining a stony silence about the future of VMWare Service Manager, better known to most of is as InfraEnterprise, a great service desk product originally out of Australia. Rumours are rife, with a strong concensus that version 9.2 or 9.3 likely to be last version of a total ITSM solution - there will be no VSM 10. VMWorld is on now, let's see what comes of it...

The service desk isn't here right now

skeptic — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:34:19 +0000

It seems to me that a Service Desk should be able to take time out for professional development and team building.

The Standard+Case approach: applying Case Management to ITSM

skeptic — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 23:44:25 +0000

Here is an exciting new approach to categorising and resolving any sort of activity "tickets", such as requests (including incidents) on a service desk, problems, or changes. It is called Standard+Case until somebody comes up with a better name. I know there is so much to read these days, but if you have anything to do with service support or change management, read this. It'll change your year.

Standard+Case is a synthesis of our conventional "Standard" process-centric approach to responding, with Case management, a discipline well-known in some other industry sectors such as health, social work, law and policing.

S+C addresses criticisms of approaches like ITIL for being too process-centric and not allowing customers and knowledge workers to be empowered. S+C does not seek to replace or change ITIL or other theory: it expands and clarifies that theory to provide a more complete description of managing responses.

It provides a good skills path for service desk analysts that fits well with gamification. And Standard+Case is applicable to Problem Management and Change Management (and Event Management...) as well as Service Desk activities. S+C applies to anything that requires a human response: there's either a standard response or there isn't.

For more information about Standard + Case, see the Basic Service Management website.

User self-help - a skeptical view

skeptic — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:37:47 +0000

Continuing our debate about social media it occurred to me what a load of bollocks this idea is that users are going to support each other without a service desk.

ITIL-Aligned Sharepoint? Nooooooooo!!!

skeptic — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:14:25 +0000

Servicesphere brought to my attention the recently announced product from GMA that is an "ITIL-aligned SharePoint IT Service Desk Solution". I break out in a cold sweat just hearing that. So what is meant by "ITIL Aligned" and "Service Desk"?

Why are the analysts dumping IT Service Desk

skeptic — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:40:26 +0000

I heard it first on @ServiceSphere's tweets. The analysts are losing interest in IT Service Desk tools.

Who does the service desk serve?

skeptic — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:56:08 +0000

Who does the service desk serve? That comes back to what the support service is there for.

New technique to squeeze optimum performance from helpdesks

skeptic — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:27:24 +0000

According to news reports,

Workers at a government call centre were ordered to observe a three-minute time limit when using the toilet and keep diary entries of how long they spent in the bathroom.

Separation of incident and call

skeptic — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:36:20 +0000

From time to time, a consultant is in the position of explaining and justifying fundamentals. Recently I was describing how incidents are not the same thing as calls, that every call is not a new incident if the same user has already called about the same incident previously, that it is more effective to record the call history on the same incident. I went to three sources of "best practice" for support - there isn't any.

Is ITIL KEDB so important or should we always look broader?

skeptic — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:34:31 +0000

A discussion on LinkedIn prompted me to comment that KEDB is a subset of knowledge management for service desk. I think it is important to take a broader view and provide access to more general information about solutions to incidents and resolutions to requests, not just workarounds to known errors. I've seen folk micro-design that one bit without considering a more generally useful system. I never quite understood why ITIL seems fixated on KEDB, giving it a disproportionate amount of attention vis-a-vis the more general support knowledgebase. Thoughts?

How much good user feedback is lost by the Service Desk?

skeptic — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:51:36 +0000

I'm a good citizen of the internet communities I inhabit. If something is not useful to me or could be improved, then I generally use the written contact mechanism to let them know. I'm a smart guy and tech-savvy so my messages are - I hope - pretty clear and to the point (if a bit abrasive - it's just the Antipodean in me). But I don't have a good success rate with them.

Real ITSM user priority

skeptic — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:48:04 +0000

As we said before, Real ITSM does things differently to, say, ITIL. Readers may recall that Real Priority (also known as Care Factor) is measured by the number of metaphorical fans that are being hit by effluent: it starts at zero and goes up. More conventionally, Real ITSM also tracks a separate User Priority (also known as the Dummy Factor, for the number of dummies being spat).