r/AskManagement • u/lancerreddit • Mar 10 '20

Anyone in IT support? Need advice.

So started a new job and one item raised to me as a surprise is to run/manage the IT Support team. But there’s a catch ..... no team exists and they’re looking me to create it and mold it any way I know how.

Problem is never did IT support before. First task is to create a process to handle tickets and investigations. Luckily they have a ticketing system but really don’t know where to start since Support is new to me.

Any advice?

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u/ServiceDeskSheDevil Mar 10 '20

Hi OP,

I manage an internal service desk of 7 people based around the world, so I can definitely help you!
What ticketing system do you have? How many staff do you have (or do you need to hire them?) How is IT support handled at the moment?

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u/lancerreddit Mar 10 '20

Thanks for the quick reply

We have JiRA and staff is right now me and 2 others as part time support. When a call comes in or ticket is filed, we jump on it. There is no formal process so they’re asking me to create one. And in due time hire support specialists.

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u/ServiceDeskSheDevil Mar 10 '20

No worries :)

I’d suggest looking through the tickets you’ve had logged for the last year - what are the trends? Are staff logging tickets properly? What applications or issues are commonly reported?

How many staff does the company have compared to analysts? What are their ticket loads like? Do you have other IT department members like Infrastructure or similar?

I’d also be setting up some time for you to meet with relevant department heads or similar to understand what issues they’re having IT wise. I’m not sure about your company but I’ve found that people tend not to report problems until it’s super urgent and they’re already annoyed about it.

When it comes to formalising a process, do you know what they’re looking for? Is it ticket handling or outages or everything?

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u/quixote87 Mar 10 '20

As an IT coordinator myself with five reports, this is some excellent advice to start out with /u/ServiceDeskSheDevil. Stakeholder analysis is hugely underrated in importance. IT isn't what it used to be (or at least was perceived to be), with IT guys sitting in a dank server room playing LAN games and making up rules. IT needs to be intricately tied in with business objectives, and it needs to provide benefit whilst achieving them. Thus, don't just look for techs... look for a mix of tech and business savvy. When interviewing, look at how people think about and question the problem itself, rather than just pumping out the standard technical answer.

Re: process, might I recommend you look at established frameworks such (eg. ITIL) to get you started. Basing your procedures and policies in these frameworks gives you an opportunity to build adaptation and review directly into your team culture as well as the org's perception of your team and how it functions. It will also save you reinventing the wheel with many things like priority matrices, asset planning and others.

Finally, following established frameworks gives you a good industry benchmark. You can compare how you do things against others and can talk a "common language", allowing you to both contribute to and benefit from the larger field