More and more organizations are turning to cloud services to reduce operational cost, transfer risk to service providers, and increase workforce mobility. Such change raises questions that must be answered. How do today’s leaders decide which services to migrate to the cloud and which to put in...
Date Published May 25, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
If there’s one thing service desks are good at, it is collecting information and reporting on it. If there is one thing they are terrible at, it is being able to focus on the few instead of the many. But one way to find out if anyone is actually reading the reports you spend so much time...
Date Published May 23, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Incident categorization is a challenge for many organizations. Whether it is due to culture, politics, complexity, or an inability to agree, every organization, at some point, runs up against incident categorization. Why does it cause so much difficulty? Every organization is different. Their...
Date Published May 22, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
Customers and service providers sometimes have different opinions of what value is. Getting the right mix of benefits, features, quality, guarantees, and costs is paramount to happy customers and a good night’s sleep. Let’s call this right mix “the zone.” You want to be in the zone at all times....
Date Published May 22, 2012 - Last Updated May 11, 2016
One of the most common questions I hear from IT support managers is “How many technicians should I have in desktop support?” In this white paper, I will present a rigorous methodology for determining the appropriate technician headcount for desktop support. By following this approach, desktop...
Date Published March 15, 2012 - Last Updated December 30, 2014
In any service and support situation, the relationship between service providers and consumers is mechanically bounded by the service terms and conditions and a set of agreeable payment terms. What’s often missing in outsourcing-based provider-consumer relationships is a set of business rules...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016
KPIs aren't the goal—continual improvement is. Like ITIL itself, continual improvement is a cycle: once you've achieved a target, the cycle begins anew.
Date Published - Last Updated May 11, 2016
A well-designed, highly automated reporting framework that utilizes a balanced approach, effective graphics, clear targets, and real-time and periodic reporting, along with analysis and recommendations, is absolutely essential for IT service management to be effective in delivering quality...
Date Published - Last Updated December 30, 2014
Reporting is like food. Some dishes are simple, requiring few ingredients; some are more complex, requiring more (and more unique) ingredients. We all have our own flavor preferences. IT reporting is much the same. Depending on your department and your management’s desires, your business’s...
Date Published - Last Updated February 26, 2016
The service desk is the face of IT, regardless of what technology resources and capabilities are ultimately deployed to deliver services, and we need to change the way we deal with our customers, who are becoming increasingly tech-savvy and demanding more adaptable business solutions. We must...
Date Published - Last Updated February 25, 2016