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How is putting things in a calendar really significantly different to putting things in a ticketing system?
It would make the backlog review calls hilarious.
I am also not sure how we would mark its progress from design=>dev=>qa=>uat=>prod.
Maybe thats why an open plan office is needed so we could pass a paper calendar around.
I used to have two actual offices (closable doors rotting cycle kit under tables, the lot...) and a PA and everything (to do typing believe it or not...) Now I hot desk in open plan across two offices with home working, and with a bigger job and a much bigger team (albeit with a flatlining 'career'). Our IT folks seem to cope okay too, sometimes working in direct daylight, and operate a ticketing system to manage direct demand. It's just how folks work these days.
@Alan1977 I get where you are coming from. I used to be an IT bod in a similar role, in what was a smallish company. We had our own office, because when you've got multiple job on the go with PC/Server/Printers in bits, a 1 person cubicle doesn't cut it, and booking out a meeting room so you can have enough space, every time you need extra space, then clear it all away, etc, was impractical. On top of that, a lot of what we did in IT was problem solving, and we'd be bouncing ideas off one another, finding solutions and working in a collaborative way that doesn't function in an open plan environment.
I speak from experience, as the same thing regarding the office move, happened to us. In an open plan office it was difficult for us as a department and disruptive to other groups in the office. I hated it. Luckily I left 18 months after the move. All can say is, Good Luck!
It would make the backlog review calls hilarious.
No, I know. But it's absurd to say that we only have ticketing systems as a crutch for IT and say you could just put things in a calendar instead... which effectively turns your calendar into a (crappy) ticketing system.
So you're saying you are all special lambs that need special protection then? Is that right? That you can't cope with the requests from your colleagues without them brandishing forth the mighty ticket stub hewn from the very living limb of the special icon on the desk top..?
Cool, cool, as long as we all understand...
NickC the comments re ticketing system
its literally essential
the alternative would be setting up a sperate calendar myself and boss have access to, and every time there was an issue , manually filling the info in, or copy paste, add all the customer fields the like the user, hardware identifiers etc etc, it would take longer to populate the calander than complete the job.
so what would happen? my inbox would then be a backlog of tickets, that needed processing even before i could start fixing the issue
So what id do instead is get my developer head on for a few months and come up with automating everything through Outlook, and create... a ticketing system, which someone already has done to a higher standard and with far more functionality
remember, I'm keeping track of 350+ pcs/phones/laptops.. 250 odd users and all their issues, I'm not simply helping Jim in accounts total up an excel column
A ticket system is essential
we used to not have one when we didn't have a budget
people went without getting their issues sorted
Our IT dept has been forced to man an in-person helpdesk, which means we can now go down and get a new mouse / keyboard / power supply / batteries immediately rather than it going into a ticketing system for 48-72 hours and us having to resort to Cougars stone and chisel until the replacement shows up.
I wondered if their sartorial choices were the result of being limited to a basement somewhere for years, like a separate branch on a Darwinian evolutionary tree on some remote island that favored 90's Nu-metal black shirts with flames on them, but now paired with a grey beard and Birkenstocks.
In the same way everyone in engineering eventually buys a 5-pack of light blue shirts from M&S.
Hands up, I don’t want to be in the main population at all, with HR directly behind me, my boss has already said to use his office as it will be empty 90% of the time, but surely there is some legitimate arguments against an IT person potentially dealing with sensitive information, or GDPR related info, for example me taking staff mobile numbers to help them with MFA etc etc? help me formulate a good argument that would stand up 🙂
As opposed to the proles in gen-pop doing the same conversation on the other end of the phone?
We'd all like our own office, but we're not getting one 😂
What the IT bods fail to grasp is that, in every office, there is that one person who actually knows how to work Excel and has a screwdriver in their drawer.
This unsung hero gets constantly disturbed from their real, non IT related job and actually fields about 90% of the IT related issues in any organisation.
There is no ticketing system for this Idiot Filter. They are omnipresent
and has a screwdriver in their drawer.
And a knife??
How is putting things in a calendar really significantly different to putting things in a ticketing system?
Call priority. SLAs and automatic alerting when they're being reached. Ticket progress updates. Call status. Previous call history. Asset tracking and trend analysis. Categorisation. Current call owner. Transfer of call ownership. Agent time utilisation. Control over who has visibility of what information (vital if you're dealing with calls from outside the business, you don't want customers seeing internal communication). Statistical analysis for Management reports. Etc etc.
How are you supposing the information gets into the calendar in the first place? With a ticket management system the onus is on the user, with a shared calendar the Tech would do nothing but log calls all day.
What happens when the business grows and there's 1,000 users? 10,000? You're going to have to pull out a braindead workaround hack that you've been heavily reliant on for years in order to implement it properly like you should have done in the first place. It is simply the wrong tool for the job and many correct ones exist so why wouldn't you?
So you’re saying you are all special lambs that need special protection then? Is that right? That you can’t cope with the requests from your colleagues without them brandishing forth the mighty ticket stub hewn from the very living limb of the special icon on the desk top..?
Can you point on the doll where the IT Technician touched you?
its literally essential
I'm literally taking the piss to pass the time on a very boring Teams call.
Although this little number
remember, I’m keeping track of 350+ pcs/phones/laptops.. 250 odd users and all their issues, I’m not simply helping Jim in accounts total up an excel column
I wouldn't reveal to the finance team if I were you, if you want your pay to be right...ever again. Jus' saying
Call priority. SLAs and automatic alerting when they’re being reached...
Yes, I know. That wasn't my point.
Surely if you don't want to be in with 'Gen Pop' you need to trick them into thinking you'll make their new, pretty open plan office look terrible.
So if your current IT space is tidy, fill it with as many half assembled broken workstations, monitors, servers, printers, bundles of Misc cables and as big a pile of non-functional mice/keyboards as you can manage. Oh and Don't forget to have lots of empty boxes half blocking a fire escape.
Tell them you need at least four "test benches" (Full sized desks with twin monitors, peripherals and lots of random unconnected cables)...
This is all just the opening gambit, you want them to find an alternative room to hide you and the unsightly crap they need to believe you come with. Without a reason to do so though they'll just treat you like a normal employee and pop you next to chatty Doris from Accounts.
Our IT dept has been forced to man an in-person helpdesk, which means we can now go down and get a new mouse / keyboard / power supply / batteries immediately rather than it going into a ticketing system for 48-72 hours and us having to resort to Cougars stone and chisel until the replacement shows up.
This is another 'economies of scale' argument. If you can pop down to stores and request a new mouse I'd say that's a sensible way of doing things, the red tape isn't worth it. If they expect to pop down and request a new laptop then not so much.
I implemented exactly this system way back when I was in Support in the 1990s. Rather than requesting low-value items like mice on an individual basis which took days, we got a box of them out the warehouse, stuck it in a cupboard along with a box of Jiffy bags. A caller needs a new mouse, it was in Outgoing Post in minutes.
But it becomes less viable when the company grows and you need to keep stock of sundries at every branch, when that runs low they come back to Logistics for a bulk replacement order and that needs ticketing and tracking.
What the IT bods fail to grasp is that, in every office, there is that one person who actually knows how to work Excel and has a screwdriver in their drawer.
On the contrary. At a previous employer we were central IT for our site and a handful of remote offices. Each office had an IT Champion, our (volunteered) primary contact as someone who wasn't completely useless and could be trusted to do things like read error messages. This was back in the days where things like remote desktop access weren't commonplace. They were invaluable.
If you are responsible for hardware, just make sure you explain how noisy diagnosis can be.
I guarantee if you use an electric screwdriver wherever possible you will be found somewhere away from everyone else. My cheapo bosch is particularly whiney and really grates on people.
Because you won't find a legal reason to not be in an open plan space. My organisation has to conform to many security audits due to the sensitivity of the stuff we do. The infrastructure / desktop team are in the open plan with everyone else and it works fine. There is not a trail of people going to their desk throughout the day because of a rigid adherence to a ticketing system.
I've got a very noisy mechanical keyboard
a penchant for noisy music
unfortunately we don't really have any local servers anymore.
you need to trick them into thinking you’ll make their new, pretty open plan office look terrible.
Trick?
This popped up on Facebook a little while back, it's from my Time at the aforementioned 1990s Support role.
I commented, "I'm pretty sure that's my old desk." An old colleague replied, "It's absolutely your desk. Your chair's gone missing, it's covered in bits of computer, and you're not at it."
(An aside for fellow Techs: Note the stockpile of IBM Model M's under the drawers.)
I work in a global engineering organisation, offices in 50 countries. Current (UK) office is open plan, circa 200 desks (prob 100 people in.) 3 observations. HR do not have their own office. The guy (and his team) who looks after nuclear security for UK operations does not have his own office. IT who administer systems capable of running nuclear defence work do not have their own office. All open plan. All this above board and in line with national security policy and best practice.
Your GPDR argument is screwed.
and has a screwdriver in their drawer.
And a knife??
And a queue of perplexed colleagues who have no idea how they're expected to eat apples and cheese without IT support
HR directly behind you is the problem. Mainly because they will a) jibber jabber incessantly b) start accumulating evidence
yeah, but it's HR. They'll lose the evidence or use it against the wrong person a couple of months late.
they will a) jibber jabber incessantly
Who's your HR rep, Mr T?
And a queue of perplexed colleagues who have no idea how they’re expected to eat apples and cheese without IT support
🤣🤣🤣
Who’s your HR rep, Mr T?
I ain't getting in no open-plan, fool!
And a queue of perplexed colleagues who have no idea how they’re expected to eat apples and cheese without IT support
We established on the other thread that only bona-fide Alpha males carry knives around in their daily life.
Can someone create the Venn diagram for IT support professionals and knife carriers? It's looking like the international dialling prefix to me.
Most 'open-plan' offices mean a massive room with 200 of the lower paid staff chucked in together, like some kind of bear pit. Getting an office is then a reward for being promoted.
The reason for open plan in the first place was to foster teamwork and creativity. Walls were a barrier. This is great, if an architect designs an inspiring workplace and there is some added value to being creative and team-working.
We established on the other thread that only bona-fide Alpha males carry knives around in their daily life.
Can someone create the Venn diagram for IT support professionals and knife carriers? It’s looking like the international dialling prefix to me.
Then you run into the leatherman conundrum. Not big enough to satisfy the knife boys, geeky enough for the IT bods but a dangerous weapon in the eyes of the law 🙂
Having IT out in the “open” is a total PITA. People walk up all the time with “can you just…?” requests, you get treated as a one stop shop for “I need a new [IT thing]…”
It’s just constant disruption.
This.. 'drive by requests' are really disruptive... **** off and log a ticket so it can be prioritized correctly. If you are unable to log a ticket (connectivity issues etc), then pick the phone up and it'll be fixed there and then on the phone, & a ticket will get logged on your behalf and progressed accordingly.
Having people walk up with ad-hoc requests/ random rants all the time is not scalable, and if there's no ticket logged, it makes analytics for incident management/problem management & service improvement impossible if stuff keeps getting fixed 'under the table/off the record'
the Venn diagram for IT support professionals and knife carriers? I
That's too complex a relationship for a Venn diagram - I'm thinking ceremonial elvish swords for one thing.
Can someone create the Venn diagram for IT support professionals and knife carriers? It’s looking like the international dialling prefix to me.
+ ?
😁
if there’s no ticket logged, it makes analytics for incident management/problem management & service improvement impossible if stuff keeps getting fixed ‘under the table/off the record’
It also means that it looks like you've done nowt all day. If your KPI is "tickets closed" and you've run around fixing 57 "have you got a minute?" issues that day then the office will love you right up until you get sacked for underperforming.
I believe the OP needs to request a "build room" or "server room" - that's where our desktop support guys usually hide out, picking off the easy jobs from the ticket system so they look busy...
😉
This.. ‘drive by requests’ are really disruptive… **** off and log a ticket so it can be prioritized correctly. If you are unable to log a ticket (connectivity issues etc), then pick the phone up and it’ll be fixed there and then on the phone, & a ticket will get logged on your behalf and progressed accordingly.
Struggling to see the difference between someone walking up and phoning up - eye contact, I guess.
It also means that it looks like you’ve done nowt all day. If your KPI is “tickets closed” and you’ve run around fixing 57 “have you got a minute?” issues that day then the office will love you right up until you get sacked for underperforming.
Also this... my last boss, who was a new hire, actually said to me one day 'I don't understand what it is you do all day' and there were noises about putting me on a performance improvement plan.
I resigned not too long after that.
Disruption from what? That’s what they are there for.
From experience it is a bit of a pain having people walking up when you also have a queue of problems and requests in the call logging system you are trying to work through. But it's how it is. I don't recall security ever being an issue.
if there’s no ticket logged, it makes analytics for incident management/problem management & service improvement impossible if stuff keeps getting fixed ‘under the table/off the record’
We logged walkups in the system.
Open plan may work for a traditional "office" type environments but imo creative industries and software developers work better with quieter single flavour workrooms. But pretty much every office build after 1970 was open plan.
Make everyone put support requests in via Jira and ban walk-up cases.
Struggling to see the difference between someone walking up and phoning up – eye contact, I guess.
And
We logged walkups in the system.
Might work if you have a dedicated 1st line support person(s) who do nothing else... in reality you often have to wear many hats in a service delivery environment, 1st line, 2nd line, incident management, problem management, analytics and monthly reporting to various stakeholders... some of these functions take time without interruption.
And if you have a major incident to deal with, a p2 or a p1 then literally eveything has to stop to deal with that issue exclusivley... and then there's the aftermath of a p2 or p1 incident once it's fixed... root cause anaysis reporting, that feeds into problem management and change management processes.
"but I only want a new mouse/there's something wrong with my spreadsheet fomula!" I hear you cry! get in the sea.
Our new build will be open plan for a max of 160ish. It will be truly terrible.
Mind you we should be inspired because it's a learning space and not 8 classrooms. I'm biting my tongue as I'm going for promotion. Once that's done, then I'm going to properly vent.