First, I can totally relate to the over worked part. I think that’s part of the industry and the same for everyone.
As far as tools, definitely check out Request Tracker or RT. It’s free, open source and extremely powerful. I ran my instance under Linux and the ability to be customized is very powerful. You have lots of templates and work flows that you can use in your design. RT allows for web or e-mail entries and gives a view for the supervisor so you can see how many tickets are open, closed, in trouble, awaiting pickup, etc. You can also integrate RT with all your other tools like NNM tools etc. I would definitely check this out.
As far as structure, I think you’re hading basically in the right direction. One thing I learned as a manager though, do not wait to long to replace someone if you have to. I know it’s difficult but if you have the option to switch out non performers do it rapidly. If you’re in software development you also might look at the scrum method. Agile software makes a Scrum management tool that’s mostly accessible. Expensive but something to consider.
Also, have your meetings standup. They go by much more rapidly if nobody is comfortable.:) We would do daily stand ups for 10 minutes or so to get everyone’s status and find pain points etc.
Let me know if that helps at all and good luck in your management position.
On Feb 6, 2014, at 3:41 PM, Darragh Ó Héiligh
Hello,
Have any of you managed a service desk?
I find myself in this horrible position.
In addition to doing far too many other things, I’m also trying to build and manage a service desk.
The main incident / call / ticket handling tool that we are using is called Autotask. Looking at this product it’s seems great but there are a few accessibility issues and it costs about €5000 a year to run. Seems a little expensive to me. True, it has a lot of features but I would safely say that the moment, we are using very few of them.
Here is the problem I’m trying to fix. It’s not specifically accessibility related but the tool / tools that I use will need to be accessible. For obvious reasons.
I have three people working for me at the moment. One is not bad. She’s come from doing an IT course for a year. The other has learned a lot in her 8 months working for me and the third is only with me for the past week. She did a software development course for the past three years but seriously, I think my guide dog is more qualified so I have had to start her off just taking calls.
The software is absolutely crap. It has a great core but the company has a culture of rushing new releases out the door without actually bundling them into a formal versioned release. So, Tomorrow morning I could start work to find that the main developer had an idea tonight and changed the approvals screen and every customer will be up in arms.
So, my problem is too much work, not enough staff and not enough qualifications and skills. Oh, also, I’m working as an escalation point, a developer, a manager, a consultant and a project implementer so I’m regularly working 13 to 15 hour days. It’s seriously nuts.
However, I was thrown into the deap end. I have no doubt that if I was setting this up, I probably would have done it differently. The challenge is trying to rise above things for a while to get a high level picture of how it’s all working. Or….. not. As the case seems to be.
I’m looking for tools / procedures / structures that you have used in the past.
1. What call logging tool did you use?
2. What books did you read if any?
3. What structure did you use? At the moment I have the three people separated into level 1, 2, and 3. All levels are busy and the person now at level 2 has been motivated by the fact that she has tangible career progression after a very short time. The person at level 2 is a dynamo actually. Eager to learn, a very hard worker, very dedicated and absolutely fantastic with talking to customers. The person at level 3 is very shy, not so good with customers although she’s getting better, very analytical and very interested in learning. However, of course, they have their weak points but their things I can work with.
4. I need to provide better information to the owner of the company. A tool that would let me do this would be great. I suppose it would integrate or be part of the call logging tool. I can pay for the call logging tool. That’s not really a problem however, it would be a bit of an up heaval for customers because they’ve only started using our new system since May. However, the manager of the company hates Autotask.
Any suggestions would be more than welcome. As you’ve guessed, I’m much happier in technical roles but life keeps pushing me in this direction. Even though I hate it! _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins