What Can We Learn From Corporate Support
- By Mikael Blaisdell
- 10/29/04
A true challenge in higher ed IT support is the ability to make a strategic,
connect-the-dots case to senior-level administrators.
As a 25-year veteran of the support/helpdesk/service community in corporate
America (and now, with an eye to support in higher education), I’ve accumulated
a good deal of experience in support strategy, operations, structure, and technology—and
I have the gray hair to prove it.
Now I’d like to use a bit of my background in corporate IT support as
a “crystal ball” of sorts, for one thing apparent to me as I survey
higher ed support issues is the tendency of campus support organizations and
help desks (generally) to lag a bit behind the evolution of support in corporate
America. That means that in many cases, I can pretty much predict what issues
and changes you may be dealing with next, and what those solutions may be, down
the road. After all, I’ve already followed the pattern in business support.
Granted, there are distinct differences between support on campus and support
in the commercial sector—but not as many as you might suppose. Here’s
one glimpse backward that may get you thinking about how to move forward:
A War Story from the Commercial Sector
Some years ago, a new corporate president and CEO (who had a reputation for
being both tough and sharp) was getting briefed by her department heads. As
the IT director was going through his presentation, explaining his department’s
organizational structure and mission, the CEO suddenly stopped him. “Back
up two slides,” she snapped. Somewhat nervously, he complied, redisplaying
the data prepared by the help desk manager that showed the operational stats
for the group. “That slide,” the CEO said after a moment, “tells
me that at any given time, around X percent of our employees are sitting idle,
waiting for their computers to become available again, and costing us money.
Am I misreading those statistics?”
The director quickly reviewed the reported numbers of cases, severity/priority
levels, average handling times, escalations, and resolution times, and realized
that there was only one answer he could offer the CEO. “No, you’re
not misreading the figures; that’s an accurate picture of the situation,”
he said, bracing for an unpleasant reaction.
The CEO’s reply, however, surprised him. “What would it take to
cut that percentage in half, and how long would you need to do it?” she
asked. As it turned out, the director had the answer ready; in the course of
a request for additional staff (a request that had been turned down at the time),
he had recently been briefed on the subject by the help desk manager. “If
I had three additional staffers and about 45 days to bring them up to speed,”
he said, “we could do somewhat better than the 50 percent reduction you
want.”
The director was expecting to be told that there couldn’t be any staff
increases; that he would simply have to deliver the improvement with what he
already had, or less. (He’d been through similar discussions in the past.)
As it turned out, though, he was wrong.
“Hire them,” the new CEO said, “Immediately. And I want to
see that report, brought up to date, every Monday morning until you make your
goal. After that, send it to me every month unless the downtime percentage exceeds
that new threshold for a week.”
Clear-cut (and Not So Clear-cut) Connections
The IT director in my corporate IT support story got lucky. He received an
immediate authorization to increase help desk staff (and he hadn’t even
requested the increase!), all because his company CEO immediately made the connection
between the cost of lost productivity, and the (on the surface) “dry”
statistics from the help desk manager.
One of the challenges in higher ed IT support, is the ability to make that
same kind of case to senior-level administrators such as CFOs, when the direct
connection to lost dollars isn’t quite as clear-cut. D'es ineffective
or underfunded IT support on your campus impact users as distinctly (for purposes
of funding arguments) as, say, when Verizon Wireless customer support falls
short, and consumers flee to Sprint and Cingular? Maybe not, but that d'esn’t
mean that negative impact d'esn’t exist. Are there “typical”
or “model” arguments that campus IT support directors can use, to
make the case for more resources and better tools?
According to Phil Verghis, president of The Verghis Group Inc. (www.verghisgroup.com),
there is no such thing as a typical higher education help desk, and he should
know. Verghis ran the help desk at Duke University (NC) for
years, and is a veteran practitioner of global support. He is the only two-time
winner of Service News’ Service 25 Award, given to those who have made
a significant impact in the field of service and support, and he has been recognized
for having made some of the most notable contributions to the support industry
over the last decade. His teams have won a number of international awards for
excellence in people, process, and technology in the customer support arena.
Verghis has also managed and supported the world’s largest distributed
IP network, with 15,000 servers in over 60 countries.
Says Verghis: Only at a help desk for students at a for-profit institution
can the relationship between lost productivity and the profit-and-loss picture
be easily and directly connected in hard-dollar fashion to the purpose and management
of the help desk. For the manager of a faculty help desk at a state university,
making those clear connections would be a different challenge, as it would be
for the manager of a help desk dedicated to the support of the administration
staff at a mid-sized private institution. What’s more, adds Verghis, campus
IT organizational models are scattered all over the map: Some colleges and universities
have moved to a consolidated IT organization, while others have independent
fiefdoms loosely connected. Clearly, in the effort to tie IT support process
and structure back to strategic foundations, in order to secure more dollars
and resources, one argument model will not fit all.
Reality 101: Find Your Connections
The fact that one argument model will not fit all, however, d'es not excuse
the campus IT support director or help desk manager from the need to connect
what they do at their level, to the long-range goals and objectives of their
institution’s senior management. Am I suggesting that the burden of communication,
and of aligning your tactics to the overall strategic goals of the institution,
is on you? You bet I am. It is incumbent upon you to position yourself to present
to senior administrators—using language they will understand and appreciate—what
the meaning of your work is in terms of overall institutional strategy, whether
they have stated it for you or not.
For instance: You know that in order to respond to X (percent) of
all incoming service requests within S (seconds), you need P (people) available
to meet a (volume) level of V, where the average (handling time) is H. Erlang
(www.erlang.com), working
for the Danish telephone company, had the basic approach for those calculations
worked out before 1917. Yes, these are concepts and terms you understand, but
presidents, chancellors, and CFOs probably won’t care much about your Erlang
tables. They speak in strategic terms, and you’ll have to match your language
to theirs if you want to communicate with them, build resources for your support
team, and deliver improved service. What d'es the difference between a 60-second
average response time and a 15-minute (or greater) average response time mean
to senior management? If you resolve 60 percent of all faculty or administrative
requests for support within one hour, is that service good enough?
You tell me. The best way to bring you an effective column tailored to the
support problems of your own campus is to design this column as a forum for
an ongoing conversation about issues at all levels of the university support
management structure, from CIO/VP, to support center/help desk supervisor. Consider
me your IT support consultant, and send in those questions and comments. Then
I’ll present you, the readers, with a conversation that brings value to
us all.
