You want us to Support WHAT?!? negotiation, Delivery, and Cultivation: The Gateway to Excellent Service Deployment

By Nathan Carpenter and Ryan Tucker

"The introduction of new services is inevitable. Providing excellent support requires collaboration from the early planning stages through implementation and beyond."

This article emphasizes the importance of communication and collaboration between service managers and the Help Desk. A relationship needs to be built between these two parties for an IT organization to roll out a successful new service.

The Help Desk is the face of the organization and must be advocate to their customers; they are expected to be able to correctly address concerns and questions from people. Help Desk Representatives build the company’s reputation and it is vital that they know what they are talking about.

This is where the term "being at the table" comes in. "Being at the table" changes the way help desk representatives are involved in discussions revolving around the project. A help desk representative is now assigned to nearly every major project served by a company; here they serve as both an advocate for the help desk and all their customers.

I think that the idea of "being at the table" is excellent. If the Help Desk representatives are not informed they could be giving out false information, making customers more confused than they were before. I think keeping help desk representatives informed as well as keeping a strong relationship is the way to build a successful company.

After reading this article; it is good to see that times are changing and improvements on communication and management are being made. People cannot perform their jobs well if they don't know what’s going on behind the scenes.

~Luisa

Developing a Customer Service Catalog fo a Higher Education Information Technology Services

By Andrew H . Lyons 

 

"To better serve the consumers of information technology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Information Technology Services re developed our department Web site with specific focus on the catalog of services."

The process of re-creating the IT Services Web site is then underway.

A great deal of planning and research went into this project. Input from as many people as possible was a key aspect to getting constructive feedback to make the improvements needed in the reconstruction of this Web site. A core group of customers were asked for opinions on the current site, these customers ranged of varying technical experience and past use of the site. Consulting these customers determined what the priorities were of the final product. These goals were basically; make it simple, searchable, actionable and in regular language.

I am currently in my third year project and I found this article interesting and easy to relate too. This article demonstrates a very clear and well constructed managerial process. The methodologies used in this process help create a clear path and have made the outcome of this project a successful one.

~Luisa

What Determines IT Spending Priorities?

By Hoon S. CHA, David E. Pingry And Matt E. Thatcher

After reading this article I'm surprised to learn that security is ranked as such a low priority in many businesses. "Security ranks as the lowest planned IT expenditure." I would have thought that security was quite a high priority for any business given the disastrous consequences associated with security failures.

"The highest IT spending priorities of the respondents are in the areas of administration and production and distribution." Of course survey data changes due to  business factors such as; industry type, firm size, and perceptions of the impact of past IT investments. Surveys show that service firms are more likely to rank IT spending in support of R&D and security as their largest priority. In comparison, small firms are more likely to rank IT spending in support of security as their lowest priority.

I can understand why larger firms would rank security as a high priority, they have more to lose if something were to happen. However, I am surprised to learn that small businesses rank security as such a low priority. Surely it shouldn't matter how big or small the company is, security should always be a high priority.

I feel that having security at the bottom of your list of priorities is a bad idea no matter what size the business is.

~ Luisa Zigliani

Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn't Make

By Jeanne W.Ross and Peter Weill

This article clearly outlines that there are decisions IT people shouldn't make. Being in IT I see the miscommunication between IT people and outside people. IT people tend to forget that not everyone is IT understanding. "What can I do? I don't understand IT well enough to manage it in detail. And my IT people although they work hard - don't seem to understand the very real business problems." This article shows that there is a place for IT people and a place for business executives.

Jeanne W.Ross and Peter Weill claim that successful companies are the ones whose business executives articulate a clear strategy for IT is six specific areas, they describe the six decisions that your IT people shouldn’t make. I agree that there are certain decisions that shouldn't be left up to the IT people. IT projects need a clear direction and limitations, if these are not enforced it can result in messy expensive systems that add no value to the company.

Summarizing this article, it is clear that there has been great conflict in decision making and who will take the blame if something goes wrong. The author is saying that IT executives "should make key decisions" and IT people "shouldn't make decisions". I think technological decisions should still be left to the IT people, but agree that decisions that affect the business structure should be taken by the business executives.

~ Luisa Zigliani