Building Efficiency in Your IT Department #1 – Systems to Manage the Process

How can a small IT department, in a growing company, create the systems and processes necessary to provide effective support?  In a three part series, this article and the next two months’ newsletters, we will cover key systems and processes for an effective IT department.  This article addresses ticketing and asset management systems and processes.  In the ensuing two months, we will tackle IT planning and budgeting, project management and proactive network management.

This is an outline of what I believe is the truth of running an IT department.  I run an IT practice comprised of 3 network engineers, 7 support staff, 4 IT managers, and 1 intern.  When we were smaller, we worked much like most small IT departments, with one person managing the IT department and the servers, and 1 or 2 reports managing staff computing.  Server management is ad hoc, unplanned, and reactive.  There may or may not be a ticket system, with staff requests being communicated by email, handwritten notes, in person, or through their manager in a staff meeting.

When your network is small, ad hoc management can work.  As the user base grows, business needs expand, and demand increases on existing IT staff, the lack of systems will start to show in the form of constant unplanned work, out of budget spending, and aging, at-risk systems that may or may not be backed up.  The IT manager pleads for more help and money for new systems, while senior leadership requires metrics to make decisions, proof that IT spending will improve business operations, and assurance of no more surprise expenditures.

Consider the following systems and processes to move from reactive chaos to proactive, effective technology support.

Start Using a Ticket System

Using an IT ticket system should not evoke the same visceral reaction as seeing your dentist.  It is not a bucket where requests go to grow old, but rather a mechanism to create accountability, prioritize work, gauge load, and provide analysis to identify systemic issues.  There are many systems out there, and most work fine; the process is more important than the tool.

When picking a ticket system, look for these key features:

• Email or portal submission
• Automatic notification to recipients of ticket changes, including new, open, pending closed, etc.
• Custom notification when a ticket is closed.  We recommend “Your ticket has been closed, if you feel it was closed prematurely please email “email address here” or call “name here at phone number here”. The solution was “solution from ticket automatically posted here”.
• Routing rules for tickets based on submitter or ticket type, priority, who should work on it, etc.
• Full email integration for staff and technical support, such that all communications can occur via email, most of which can be automated.
• Dashboard and reporting

Purchasing and configuring a ticket system is not enough, you have to get staff to use it.  You do this through internal marketing, including showing results.  In the early stages especially, all submitted tickets should get a swift, within 4 hours (9-5) response.  Issue resolution should come shortly thereafter.

Also, you should put in place an ongoing process to manage the work:

• Define a department SLA on tickets – such as reply to initial staff request email within 50 minutes of submittal, same day response for urgent requests, etc.
• Run a daily 5 minute standup on tickets twice a day.  Ask questions such as what are the 5 most important tickets, are they being addressed, if not why not.
• Run a weekly meeting to review all the tickets in the system, going over systemic issues, how the past week has gone, etc.

Implement an Asset Management System

If you want to be the CFO’s favorite person in the world, develop an asset management system for IT systems.  It not only gives Finance the information they need at the end of year, but it provides IT the tools to create an IT budget, put workstation replacement plans in place, and track renewals.  The asset management system should account for all hardware, software, and items out of production, including purchase and renewal dates.  Ideally it should also match up who uses which system and keep a history of ownership and tickets in relation to the asset.  Some asset management systems are also ticket systems that have remote control software, which is a bonus for efficient IT departments.

When choosing an asset management system, look for these features:

• Ability to assign assets to users
• Asset expirations automatically generate tickets
• Option for multiple codes or customs codes for assets such as desktop, laptop, server, SSL cert, etc.

An effective technology department is an essential element to leveraging technology for your business’ success and implementing the systems outlined in this article is the basis for a productive, effective technology department.  We urge you to use the processes and systems we have outlined above to help your organization thrive.

If you have questions on implementing these systems or would like to learn about the other technology services offered at Insource, please contact me at rgreenwald@insourceservices.com or 781-235-1490.

And watch for Part Two of this article to learn about creating an IT Budget/Plan.