Forcibly Implement Helpdesk: The Evil Corporation Experience
What is helpdesk ? The user request management system, the larva of the service desk , the first step of the enikeyschik towards ITIL , blah blah blah…
The literature devoted to the organization of the incident management system (user requests, problems in IT - call it what you will) is divided into two categories. The first includes technical low-level manuals, devoted mainly to the subtleties of setting specific solutions. Such works can tell in detail how to achieve a performance gain in WonderDesk of 0.001% under SuperSQL v.0.0001 alpha, but, as a rule, they don’t say anything about why this WonderDesk is needed at all, and, most importantly, with it, significantly accelerated then do.
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The second category is written for ... I do not even know for whom. I would say that for gods, but they, like, do not need instructions. “It is necessary to revise the very paradigm of interaction between the patterns of business processes within the framework of the concept of corporate values ​​in order to increase the level of maturity ...” Aha, he revised (after looking in the dictionary, the meanings of all these incomprehensible words), then what? How to make my "revised understanding" make users write applications, enikeyschikov - to process them, and the level of maturity - to rise? Offer "gradually introduce best management practices"? Yes, how to implement them if I am a simple enikeyschik and do not control anything ?!
One thing remains - to try to act "on a whim." About two such attempts, about exactly how they were undertaken, what prerequisites had, what results they had, i.e. about the practical experience of implementing helpdesk in an aggressive hostile environment , and will be discussed in this topic. I hope he fills the gap a little bit, giving enikeyschikam and low-skilled administrators information about how from state A , when about helpdesk and there can be no question, go to state A ' , when this helpdesk is already implemented and works.
The article has no real names of existing companies, positions, etc. There are no names, passport data, etc. All the proper names used are fictional. If you think that you know who or what became the prototype of the described subjects / processes / phenomena - this is your conjecture, take the text as artistic. And in general, do not confuse the author and lyrical hero .
To make the further presentation understandable to the outside reader, it is necessary to digress a little from the main topic of the topic and devote a few words to the conditions in which the described actions took place, because, as the classic teaches us, consciousness determines existence.
During the described events I worked in the “Evil Corporation”. No, not at Microsoft, they are, without false modesty, puppies compared to us. We spread poisons, poisoning bodies and mutilating souls, reducing the quality and longevity of millions of people. No, we are not the ROC. We do not need a good cover and can do our dirty deed quite openly. There is no such force that could prevent us. In our field we are monopolists. We are Evil Corporation, we are proud of it!
We equally hate both external counterparties and internal staff. The “corporation” uses human resources extremely efficiently, squeezing the maximum benefit out of employees to the glory of the Owners and Managers. We do not stand on ceremony with the disgruntled, throwing them out into the street without severance pay. They are sincerely happy if this particular, mild scenario of parting happens to them.
The requirements of extraordinary efficiency (i.e., enormous returns with small investments) determined the composition and structure of the corporation's networks, as well as the qualifications of its lower IT staff, to whom I had the honor to relate. We had only a few sysadmins, but I never saw them. They weredeep under the ground, among the flashes of lava for many thousands of kilometers from us, in the "Center", to visit in which I was not honored. Here, in Vladivostok, there were only enikeyschiki.
Our department, which included itself at various times from seven to four people, was responsible for the " full working capacity of the units " in the Primorye Territory, the Magadan Region and in Kamchatka. The department was headed by the Senior Enikeyshchik, we, the enikeyshchiki, were subordinate to him, and in the most distant cities we had younger enikeyshchiki. In order to optimize expenses, “Corporation” did not hire highly qualified specialists, preferring to recruit us, lamers, who would not be taken anywhere else .
A little more detail should be told about the younger enikeyschikah, because their functions and role may raise questions for the reader (“Enikey - and as an assistant, how can he also be younger?”). The fact is that these employees did not have administrative rights on the network (yes, even there, even on their computers), nor the right to purchase office equipment and spare parts, nothing. What did they do? They carried out management orders, changed cartridges, worked in the case of a massive simultaneous dismissal of all users ( for some reason, such cases occurred quite often).
Now - about the networks that had to be maintained: 50 - 70 PCs in Vladivostok, 4 - 20 PCs in each remote unit, a lot of communicators, PDAs, tablets and other mobile devices. 8 - 12 servers in our office and one in each remote unit (of which at different times was from nine to eleven).
To fully understand the specifics, here are some quotes from the Manuals to the new enikeyschikam:
And the final touch: the cult of brute force, submission and rigid hierarchy flourished in the "Corporation". Unfortunately, IT specialists were at the base of the corporate food pyramid. According to the Tradition, we had to obey all the chiefs (i.e. sales clerk, accountant, and other personalities had the right to give us orders).
I think the reader imagined the atmosphere in which the following actions took place. Remember the impression formed, it will help you understand the motives of some not quite logical, from the point of view of a normal sysadmin or supporter, decisions.
Of the eighteen to twenty hours of the working day, about half went to communicate with users by phone. It began to seem to me that real telephony was developing.
One night, my already rarely occurring dream interrupted the call. Called the girl from a distant city, an employee of the "Corporation". She had a problem, she needed a solution, and out of three enikeyschik phones she chose mine. The usual situation for IT "Corporation." But there was one moment that made me think: the caller said that in two hours she would go home, and, in principle, she needed a solution only by the beginning of the next shift (which would begin in 10 hours). And in general, she calls right now , just because then she will sleep, and she does not want to sacrifice her sleep only to inform me of the problem. Much better to sacrifice mine, yes.
“ What the hell! ” I thought. We must do something about it. By the way, the other day I read about some kind of helpdesks, it seems, this thing could save me from such idle calls, I will have to look in this direction ...
One of the most popular (judging by the number of enthusiastic reviews) user request management systems is GLPI . The developers promised a Russian-language interface, customizable usage scenarios, integration with the hardware and hardware inventory systems, a lot of plug-ins and patches from the community, and communism in general in a single system. Reading the project forum and articles on Habré , dedicated to this system, added confidence in the correctness of its choice as an engine for the organization of helpdesk.
One night,while no one sees during the lowest intensity of work of users on one of the computers that are not critical for business, a WEB-server with all the necessary “strapping” was raised, a record like " helpdesk.example.com " was created in the corporate DNS, in the system itself Active Directory integration is configured; on several PCs, the OCS Inventory NG agent is installed.
Morning came, the enikei department in full began to wait for a miracle. The day flared up, users faced various problems, my colleagues and I solved them, but the helpdesk ( for some reason !) Did not fill up. It was necessary to somehow motivate users to submit applications to the system.
It was decided to tell the most "advanced" and "loyal" users, as well as junior enikeyshchikam about the new system, try to convey to them the benefits of organized ( somehow ) processing applications, "lure" them with the prospect of reducing working time and in general prepare a team of evangelists , that bring thelight of true teaching to my enthusiastic perception of the new instrument to the rest of the staff. The latter, in turn, according to the plan, should have certainly penetrated and began to promote the helpdesk further, creating a chain reaction.
In fact, to my great surprise, it turned out quite differently. For some strange reason, the younger enikeyshchiki treated the system completely cool. " Helpdesk? Yes, let them do what they want there in Vladivostok, I won't use any helpdesk in my % CityName ." Users went further: the “advanced” began to resist the introduction of the new system, arguing for a variety of reasons, and the “ordinary” simply ignored it, referring to “employment”, “forgetfulness” and so on.
A day passed, two weeks - nothing has changed, and, with the support of my immediate supervisor, who promised, if possible, to prevent my dismissal, I decided to apply administrative pressure and order the younger enikeyschikam use helpdesk. As a result, several applications appeared in the system, in my mailbox a mountain of letters, and on the mobile - several dozen missed calls, including from the heads of distant divisions who wanted to express their "appreciation for the next innovation." It became clear that I was doing something wrong.
Repeated googling, reading IT forums and descriptions of serious helpdesk products added confidence that the problem is local, and the point is not the very idea of ​​the helpdesk, but that the system is somehow incorrectly implemented. So, you need to determine what I did wrong. It was decided to start with a survey of colleagues, users, junior enikeyschikov and their leaders.
In confidential conversations, we managed to find out that the implementation participants perceive it not at all in the way that I imagined it to be. Younger enikeyschiki advanced a thesis completely unexpected for me: they do not need helpdesk. In the sense that they simply do not feel the need for any orderly organization of the process of registration and acceptance of applications.
Firstly, because it is impossible to “forget” an uncomfortable request. As it turned out, a lot of users wanted were cut off by the old proven method of promise to make tomorrow (often, the next day the user forgot that he was terribly annoyed by the classic OS interface or non-fancy layout of shortcuts on the desktop).
Secondly, younger colleagues were afraid of users. The latter were extremely dissatisfied with the fact that now it’s not enough just to shout into the void: “ Hey, you are there, nothing works for me! ”, But you have to write something somewhere. Naturally, as a result of the absence of me in remote subdivisions, this discontent was redirected to local enikeyshchikam (well, yes, not lordly this business - in IT grades to understand).
The third reason that caused the rejection of the system by those who, it would seem, was to become its supporter, was the fear of losing the ability to go about their business during working hours. The fact is that in those branches where we had a local junior enikeyshchik, there were certain problems with IT specialists (as well as with outsourcers): some qualified and willing to work people fled from there to Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Moscow, etc. d. Therefore, some local directors were forced to give enikeyschikam certain relief, not noticing the "left" part-time work during the working time, reading Habr and the like. The introduction of centralized helpdesk allowed managers from Vladivostok to see the degree of congestion of remote enikeyshchikov, which, in turn, should lead either to an increase in the number of official duties, or to dismissal. Looking ahead, I will say that in the end something happened, and another. Colleagues were right in their fears.
Users also had their own claims to the system. Firstly, theyprefer to love personal, and if, due to geographical distance, it is not available, then telephone communication. One employee said literally the following: " Yes, I can help you, and I can read it myself, but I so want to talk with someone! " Yes, the old expression that technical support is, not least, the psychological service, is partly true.
Somewhere deep down, I even understand this argument: a lonely “line personnel unit” sits on the outskirts of the city late at night, she’s already there for twelveteen hours, and she still has to hold on for at least six to seven hours (this is not interchangeable work, and, at best, a five-day, such a schedule even exhaustive enikeyschika in three or four months exhausting, what can we say about the girls-operators). She is sad, she is an expendable material, the attitude of management and colleagues to her is appropriate. And here - technical support, enikeyschiki who are ordered to "solve any problems" who are guaranteed to listen and, being good people, will help, if not by deed, then at least by a kind word. Truly, do not underestimate this aspect of the work of the internal computer help service!
Helpdesk, and even centralized, available for analysis to the management of the Center, certainly did not assume such intimacy and benevolence, so the “ lower personnel ” (quote) strongly resisted the introduction of this, in general, quite good tool.
The second reason why users dislike the idea of ​​a helpdesk is not in the system itself, but in the way I tried to present its implementation. The rule was declared: “No application - no problem”. What is bad? So that if this rule enters into practice, enikeyschiki will receive an alibi. I will try to explain what's the matter. As I have already said, the office in which the described events took place is quite large and has several levels of organization. Each higher level requires lower-level “ reports ” (offhand, 35–40 percent of employees are only engaged in preparing “ reports ” for each other). The number of tasks coming from the upper levels obviously exceeds the capabilities of the lower units in their (tasks) processing. Therefore, employees need a universal explanation of the reasons why tasks are not regularly performed on time.
And here helpdesk and generally enikeyschiki? Everything is simple: according to the established tradition, the head responsible for the assignment reports “up” that “the report was not created because the computers do not work! I called % Enikeyschik% , but he did not pick up the phone! ”. And that's all, the problem is solved - enikeyschiki get the reprimand and / or fines, and not the team that failed the task. The task itself, of course, is completed later, which is why the next one is not fulfilled on time, but this doesn’t matter much to anyone.
Naturally, in such a situation, the introduction of a system that could provide ITUs with an alibi (“I was not informed about the problem, otherwise I would gladly have solved it”) was perceived “in hostility” by middle managers.
As the third reason, the complexity of registration of the application was mentioned. It was not possible to achieve a clear explanation of what exactly the “complexity” was, and why it was more difficult to write the text on the application form than to voice it in a telephone conversation. "Difficult", "uncomfortable" and even "terrible." Additional investigation was required, which was conducted a little later. About the results - on.
Naturally, the overall negative reaction of employees was quickly passed on to top-level local managers. Without being inclined to delve into the details of anything other than processes affecting planned targets, they simply accepted the negative attitude towards my initiative that their subordinates passed on to them, without delving into the details. I had to "push them into reality" to get real reviews.
In violation of all instructions and ethics of corporate behavior, taking advantage of the fact that colleagues were loaded, and the Biggest Local Boss was on vacation in Southeast Asia , I announced to local managers that I now accept applications only through helpdesk and only from them personally . To nip the “delegation” in the bud, I called each Important Uncle personally and asked them to comment on their application entry process in the system, watching through a remote connection how it looks on its screen. They couldn’t fire me right away (it was necessary to wait for the signature of the absent Big Boss), turn to someone else too, and the business demanded a solution to the problems.
Yes, I blackmailed colleagues. No, I was not ashamed, I sincerely believed that "doing the right thing."
As a result of such unethical measures, we managed to find out that the main reason for their own (as opposed to induced) hostility of the leaders of the “upper middle” level to the system is their incompetence. No, % username% , there is no contradiction: for their own incompetence, these people disliked me and my system, and not themselves. In the “Evil Corporation”, Managers cannot admit that they are wrong, this can lead to a loss of credibility.
First, it would seem that the simplest operations caused enormous complexity: pressing the “next” button (one manager even called an employee to the “session” who pressed the buttons for him, arguing that “the status does not allow him to do it himself "), opening an already opened application for editing, viewing the status of the application, etc.
Secondly, the Big Boss was very hard on the process of formulating thoughts. I don’t know how it was at the “summits”, but many managers spoke with subordinates in the Sharikov style - the speech was a set of interjections generously decorated with obscene vocabulary and thieves argo, occasionally interspersed with stamps from theBolshevik propaganda of the Civil War times Corporate Codes and Standards . Each more or less serious leader had an official or unofficial “borzopist-translator”, translating the speech of the Most in a more or less literary text in on-line mode.
Naturally, the need to compose a written text independently (!) Caused many to have a holy thrill.
To write in the style in which oral instructions are given is unacceptable, one can lose face. Asia-s.
Secrecy was another argument against it. Some tasks simply cannot be recorded anywhere, they are transmitted to the performer in a whisper and are accompanied by an order to issue actions for their own initiative. The presence of a record that it was not the enikeyschik himself who decided to make X , but Mr. Glavnovsky ordered him, is very undesirable for the latter, therefore he will in every way choke the helpdesk back in the bud. What, in fact, they did.
Well, last but not least, many managers noted that the process of registering an application for helpdesk is degrading for them. As one of the respondents said, " Here my desires are fulfilled even before I realize them, and you want me, as the last% of the Discriminating_name of the linear_personal%, to write something else to you ." Yes, they were ready to enter applications only in their own, golden VIP helpdesk, where mere mortals would have been banned. To be honest, this moment was not completely overcome.
Complete failure. Of course, I would like to say that the result was the acquisition of a unique experience (and I gained a lot of experience, without sarcasm), an awareness of practical difficulties in implementing control systems, blah blah blah ...
But here, in Evil Corporation, a clear and completely unambiguous criterion of the effectiveness of any action / event was adopted: did the values ​​of the planned indicators improve (the income of people with real power directly depended on this). And, since the aforementioned “acquisitions” did not increase the income, did not reduce costs, etc., they quickly explained to me that I had failed my own project.
What we got in the dry residue? I am a reprimand (only because of the dedication of the immediate superior, who, risking his position and reputation, defended my right to work in the Corporation and beyond, I was not fired). We enikeyschiki - hatred. I do not exaggerate, in an environment of constant tension, in the atmosphere of a cult of brute force and a rigid hierarchy - hatred ignites spontaneously, anyone / anything can become its object. Including, enikeyschik, who just wanted to streamline the solution to problems with IT infrastructure.
The leaders took revenge for the loss of face. Users at every opportunity accused me of unwillingness to work ("he is too lazy, you see, to understand for yourself what the problem is and where it is necessary for the writers to write incomprehensible "). Colleagues were also unhappy: they got everything on the principle of collective responsibility.
And most importantly, what was equally disliked both by colleagues, and the management (mine and in the field), and the users - my refusal from repentance. Instead of admitting that my actions were wrong, I declared a desire to continue the implementation of the helpdesk. Now I am ashamed: in my behavior I was like a religious fanatic. Perhaps that is why it seemed to me then that I was doing everything right.
No matter how hard the coaches in corporate culture try, it is impossible to make a person believe that the goals of the Company are more important than his personal goals. An employee may make a conscious concession, but never recognize the priority of corporate tasks over his own.
The task of the company was to maximize the planned indicators, and my personal task was to implement a helpdesk. It gave a ghostly hope for at least a twelve-hour working day, a weekend, and (dreadfully enough!) Leave. Extremely powerful motivator!
Therefore, in addition to the “official” evaluation of the implementation experience, I performed my own. Below are the results.
The first thing that caught my eye was the complexity of the system, noted by almost all employees, regardless of their place in the corporate hierarchy. (, , -). , , : . — , , — (, , etc):
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— ? - I asked.
- Well, of course! Don't you see it yourself ?! - they answered.
It was the second small victory on the way to the main goal. The next stage was the search for mutual understanding with colleagues.
"There is no warrior in the field ," proverb says, and I fully agree with this statement. I understood the need to form a team then. In total, at the time of the events described, there are six of us left: one Senior Enikeyschik, three “ordinary” Enikeyschik and two younger ones. Considering that this list was limited to the whole community of people who at least theoretically could help me with the implementation, I approached it very carefully.
The priority task was considered to form the required opinion from the Senior Enikeyschik. For the simple reason that we, the rest of the enikeyshch obeyed, including him. But it was not only that; besides direct administrative authority, this man had great authority. To incline him to your side meant to get all the enikeyschikov.
The problem was that he remembered the previous experiment. I hadto hit him hard on the head with a stick , gradually, gently. Sometimes I, as if completely off topic, would ask him how he would like to spend his vacation ( haha, if he had this vacation ). Sometimes I was interested in the reasons why users called him on the night from Saturday to Sunday, although I was in the office. Hinted at the fact that if he were not so indispensable specialist, then perhaps he would have had at least some free time. In general, he tried his best to create a moderate dissatisfaction with the current situation.
In parallel, I gave him specially selected links to articles on application management systems, materials on how such systems help IT professionals in large, large offices , and positive descriptions of implementations. The farther, the more frankly I forsil topic. After a while I achieved what I wanted: Senior Enikeyschik openly admitted that helpdesk is good.
This fact made it possible to fairly quickly reach an agreement with colleagues equal to me in the corporate hierarchy “merely enikeyschiki”, and proceed to the processing of our younger employees. For some time I agitated them with the same methods that were previously applied to my boss, but with less intensity. After the obviously negative attitude was replaced by the doom-neutral, I decided to act.
Understanding that, in many respects, the lack of enthusiasm for helpdesk among younger colleagues is due to the simple fact that they simply had no needs that such a system would satisfy, I decided to create these needs artificially. To this end, I suggested that the Senior Enikeyshchik shift some of the responsibilities that we carry out to our remote colleagues. The fulfillment of these duties did not require the existence of administrative rights in the domain, did not imply additional responsibilities, and, most importantly, did not imply any special knowledge / skills. Basically, they included maintaining correspondence with the Center, drawing up endless meaningless reports and, to a small extent, advising users on the most simple questions.
With this redistribution, I solved two tasks: first, I created the necessary need (the solution for which I was kindly offered a little later) from the younger enikeyschikov, and, second, I unloaded colleagues ( so much so that one of them was soon fired ) and the boss. Subsequently, the bonus was the reduction in the number of “hack-work” that remote colleagues engaged in during working hours at the expense of my employer.
So, with colleagues, the issue is resolved, it's time to move on to the most difficult task: the conviction of the leadership.
The most difficult stage for me. One wrong move - and you are fired. “ There are thousands of them outside the gates, they are ready to work for food! Remember this and thank Me, for I am the Lord your God of hosts ! ” Our leaders loved to say. Previous unsuccessful implementation experience greatly increased my, and without that rather big, chances to join the crowd of sufferers.
As with my colleagues, I decided to act gently. Trusting I lied that after the introduction of the system, their applications will be processed faster. Why lied? Because my ultimate goal was to reduce working hours and the appearance of weekends, and not to speed up the processing of requests and troubleshooting. The synergistic effect, according to my plan, was to absorb the families and hobbies of IT people, and not the gentlemen Owners and Managers. Mean? Yes, but this is a war, albeit a small one, in-office.
In order to attract the vengeful, I began to spread rumors about "a system for IT people, not allowing them to otmazatsya." I focused on the fact that the registered application remains in the system forever, being a confirmation of the inaction of enikeyschik. A performer who has badly done his work will no longer be able to rely on what the customer will forget. No, helpdesk remembers all the sins of IT people!
To lovers of dusting their eyes and demonstrating the innovativeness of their own thinking, I said that helpdesk is really cool, and all serious boys live like that.
Well, and unshakable - he said that the implementation was agreed at the very top, rightly suggesting that no one would call there with clarifications. Yes, I am a radish.
Well, well, everything is ready. We agree with friends that they, in the event of dismissal, shelter and borrow some money, inform the family that “I will not be home at night from February to April” and proceed. It is necessary to act confidently and clearly, while avoiding excessive forcing of events.
For a start, I ordered junior enikeyshchikov to apply to myselfonly on Your Holiness through helpdesk. Of course, before that, I made sure that they had situations in which only I can help them. At the same time, among the loyal users (I remind you, a part of the workforce has changed since the last introduction, so the loyal employees were, albeit few) launching a promotion: “get a solution to your problem out of turn, registering an appeal in the helpdesk system!”
For the action to work, I introduce an additional rule for myself and junior enikeyshchikov: no one goes home, even for lunch / sleep, while the system has at least one open application. I don’t touch the head and the usual enikeyshchikov, they will still be useful.
A few days later I get a valid feedback. Nicely. Based on the information received, I compose user instructions, write user cases and place materials in the corporate knowledge base (its implementation was no less epic, but more about that another time).
After that, one at a time I start to enter remote units into the system. The input is as follows: I notify the management and employees that from now on, applications are accepted only through helpdesk, I turn off my personal phone number, and I’m repeating new rules for working calls. Colleagues at this time are busy with other important things that do not involve user interaction.
I started with divisions whose employees had the least resistance. Gutless and docile - forward and no queue. And yes, I tried to transfer at first remote units, rightly believing that elementary laziness would prevent staff from coming to fill my face.
Having transferred 20–30 employees to the new rails, I felt that the process began to go easier. First of all, people saw that they were not alone (“Ivana was transferred yesterday, today I can see that everyone has such a fate”), and secondly, theherd of community felt. When the "translated" became more than the "untranslated", some began to ask themselves! For the first time about anything like this could not be.
The more people turned out to be in the system, the easier it was to get the following. In the end, I even relaxed a bit and began to use the appeal to the collective feeling: “Look, everything is already in the system, only the I / You are left!” Acts almost flawlessly. Sometimes, however, it is required to kick the client more clearly: “Ivanivanych, you do not want to remain the only one who could not switch to new rails ?!”
Anyway, in a month and a half all the users of our remote divisions were in the system. Inspired by the success, I persuaded my colleagues to support my initiative on the priority service of applications filed through helpdesk, which greatly simplified my implementation in my office. There were almost no excesses, it did not go further than threats of dismissal. Vladivostok launched in one working week.
Soared. Of course, during the operation some problems were revealed, of course, there are still dark corners in the network, not illuminated by the light of the formalized process of registration and processing of applications. But it is - little things.
It was not possible to simply install the system and force users to register requests in it. It would be too little, for the sake of it it was not worth doing all that was done. The result was much more "deep": the whole scheme of user interaction with enikeyschiki was rebuilt.
“ No application - no problem! ” This simple, but very important principle saved enikeyschikov from two very unpleasant problems. Firstly, the leaders of all levels lost the possibility of the enikeyschikov being accused of their mistakes: since everyone knows that we have a helpdesk, even the Highest Authorities will never again believe the manager, who claims that he did not complete the task on time, just because he had some - problems with the equipment, if, of course, he (the manager) cannot give the number of the corresponding application in the system.
The second most important effect of the implementation of this rule in practice was the timely informing of the IT department of any problems. Previously, in the "Corporation" was common such a thing as "Friday Rally" (instead of "Rough Trap" was used a different word, but, unfortunately, on Habré is not welcome mat). Its essence was that some "managers" in the "Corporation" had a weekend - Saturday and Sunday, which led to the following unpleasant scenario for IT specialists: an employee who discovered a problem with a PC (and there are always some problems with this ancient stuff! ) Waiting all week, accumulating tasks. On Friday evening, he calls the enikeyschiku and reports that "the computer does not work", which is why the Super-Important-Report is not filled (in our "Corporation" it was decided to penalize the late filling of the reports of the Biggest Local Boss, who, Of course, in such cases, I took down three skins from the perpetrator). Immediately after the call to the enikeyschik, he informs the Big Uncle that “ I told them about the problems with the computer a week ago, but they didn’t do anything! ” And then quietly goes home. As a result, the enikeyshchik had to not only urgently fix the problem, but also to finish his reports for the manager / to conduct the accountant’s entries in 1C-e / inventory goods in stock for logisticians, etc.
Registration of applications and, most importantly, the introduction into the practice of thinking and the corporate tradition of the provision that the only evidence that enikeyshchikov shirking work is the presence of an open application, made it possible to break this vicious circle and eradicate the described shameful practice.
I was somewhat afraid that, being lazy people, we, enikeyschiki, would cease to carry out preventive diagnostics and investigate problems in the infrastructure, relying only on user messages. But this did not happen: we quickly realized that it was easier to prevent a problem than to fix it, and we restored the previous level of prevention of problems. And even later, when we managed to free up some free time, we reached in this business just mind-blowing heights, creating an environment in which many problems simply cannot arise, by design. However, this is clearly beyond the scope of the article.
“ No data on the problem - no request. No request - no problem! ” Of course, we didn’t require users to diagnose the problem and describe the type ” on the secondary domain controller in GPO XXX, replace the parameter YYY with the value ZZZ ”. No, although we served in the Corporation, we were not sadists.
The practice behind this slogan was created to eradicate situations in which an employee of a remote unit, located eight hundred kilometers from the nearest enikeyschik, calls and reports that “ nothing works ” for him. At the same time, the range of implied problems is huge: this capacious description includes both the banal impossibility of booting the computer and much more complicated problems: the inventory of goods in the warehouse does not converge, the customer wants to issue a refund early in the morning when there is no one except the storekeeper and the caretaker in the office ( the storekeeper does not know the operator's password to enter the accounting system and rightly believes that “nothing works” for him, because the system really does not allow him to issue a refund).
Of course, you can talk to the person, find out what he means, understandand forgive , but at this time some more employees will pick up the phone. It is much more rational for everyone to think about the description of their problem.
What does this helpdesk? It's simple, it's psychology. When making a personal contact or phone call, the employee thinks (by the way, he rightly thinks) that the enikeyschik in the dialogue will himself pull out all the information from him. When writing the application, he (the employee) has to somehow formulate his vision of the problem. Many, writing something like “ oh, help, it's terrible pysch-pysch! ” While reading their own text, they themselves realize how ridiculous and uninformative it is made and correct the description to a completely understandable “ I have a square box rustling and cracking under my desk, sort it out ! ". Those who do not understand themselves, "kicks" enikeyschik.
"Give your name, city and office number when contacting." . 80% of all calls to enikeyschikam began with the phrase: “Hello, it's me ! I have a problem here ! How is it where? I speak here ! For stupid I repeat: I have a problem! ”
I do not know why, but finding out the name and location of the user is often very difficult. They, users, perceive such questions as an enikeyschik's attempt to avoid fulfilling their duties (“ Why is he asking me stupid questions instead of solving a problem ”). Managers of the middle and top managers consider such questions an insult (“ How is it he, Pupkina will not know me? I will show him! He will know how to ask me who I am! Look, I turned out! It’s not Me who is he is generally who! 11 ").
Helpdesk automatically displays the IP address from which the call was registered, the name, city and position of the user. This allows in 75–80% of cases to unambiguously localize the problem. Difficulty arises when, for example, one user registers a request for a problem that has arisen for another, but such cases are much smaller, and users are taught to process the necessary data to process them. In the knowledge base there is an instruction about what exactly needs to be written in such applications.
" We received a recommendation from the enikeyschik - follow it! ". Before the implementation of helpdesk, it was hard to get help from the user. They, users, rightly believe that they should not take any part in solving problems in the work of IT, because there are a whole bunch of enikeyschikov.
I agree with this statement, but there is one problem: understanding and accepting this installation, we, enikeyschiki, can not always solve the problem alone. When it becomes clear that the printer in the remote subdivision does not print simply because someone moved it to another place (interfered!), Having forgotten to connect it to the LAN, the enikeyschik could not materialize instantly and insert the cable into the connector. And although this “is not the user's work”, the only reasonable way out of the situation will be the independent execution of the connection by the remote employee. Just because otherwise - it is impossible. One may fine enikeyschikov in such cases as much as necessary, but this will not give them the ability to instantly move hundreds and thousands of kilometers (nor will the local kings to move the ill-fated printer).
After the implementation of the helpdesk, users' unwillingness to do someone else’s work (in this case, the work of an enikeyshchik) has not gone away. However, if users had previously received a request to “connect a long cable with a“ L1 ”sticker to the connector marked“ network connector ”of the printer,” they could simply hang up, and then declare that they didn’t say anything like that (“the client is always right, even if internal! "), now - all the moves are recorded. Enikeyschik has a real opportunity to prove that he really did everything he could. Reprimands were replaced by oral remarks, fines - reprimands.
“ We need to work at work! ” Prior to the introduction of a single centralized helpdesk, my younger colleagues were responsible only within their powers (remember, they didn’t even have administrator rights) and only within their own division. Not enough for a person whose salary is almost nine hundred dollars a month!
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The literature devoted to the organization of the incident management system (user requests, problems in IT - call it what you will) is divided into two categories. The first includes technical low-level manuals, devoted mainly to the subtleties of setting specific solutions. Such works can tell in detail how to achieve a performance gain in WonderDesk of 0.001% under SuperSQL v.0.0001 alpha, but, as a rule, they don’t say anything about why this WonderDesk is needed at all, and, most importantly, with it, significantly accelerated then do.
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The second category is written for ... I do not even know for whom. I would say that for gods, but they, like, do not need instructions. “It is necessary to revise the very paradigm of interaction between the patterns of business processes within the framework of the concept of corporate values ​​in order to increase the level of maturity ...” Aha, he revised (after looking in the dictionary, the meanings of all these incomprehensible words), then what? How to make my "revised understanding" make users write applications, enikeyschikov - to process them, and the level of maturity - to rise? Offer "gradually introduce best management practices"? Yes, how to implement them if I am a simple enikeyschik and do not control anything ?!
One thing remains - to try to act "on a whim." About two such attempts, about exactly how they were undertaken, what prerequisites had, what results they had, i.e. about the practical experience of implementing helpdesk in an aggressive hostile environment , and will be discussed in this topic. I hope he fills the gap a little bit, giving enikeyschikam and low-skilled administrators information about how from state A , when about helpdesk and there can be no question, go to state A ' , when this helpdesk is already implemented and works.
Disclaimer
The article has no real names of existing companies, positions, etc. There are no names, passport data, etc. All the proper names used are fictional. If you think that you know who or what became the prototype of the described subjects / processes / phenomena - this is your conjecture, take the text as artistic. And in general, do not confuse the author and lyrical hero .
Context
To make the further presentation understandable to the outside reader, it is necessary to digress a little from the main topic of the topic and devote a few words to the conditions in which the described actions took place, because, as the classic teaches us, consciousness determines existence.
During the described events I worked in the “Evil Corporation”. No, not at Microsoft, they are, without false modesty, puppies compared to us. We spread poisons, poisoning bodies and mutilating souls, reducing the quality and longevity of millions of people. No, we are not the ROC. We do not need a good cover and can do our dirty deed quite openly. There is no such force that could prevent us. In our field we are monopolists. We are Evil Corporation, we are proud of it!
We equally hate both external counterparties and internal staff. The “corporation” uses human resources extremely efficiently, squeezing the maximum benefit out of employees to the glory of the Owners and Managers. We do not stand on ceremony with the disgruntled, throwing them out into the street without severance pay. They are sincerely happy if this particular, mild scenario of parting happens to them.
The requirements of extraordinary efficiency (i.e., enormous returns with small investments) determined the composition and structure of the corporation's networks, as well as the qualifications of its lower IT staff, to whom I had the honor to relate. We had only a few sysadmins, but I never saw them. They were
Our department, which included itself at various times from seven to four people, was responsible for the " full working capacity of the units " in the Primorye Territory, the Magadan Region and in Kamchatka. The department was headed by the Senior Enikeyshchik, we, the enikeyshchiki, were subordinate to him, and in the most distant cities we had younger enikeyshchiki. In order to optimize expenses, “Corporation” did not hire highly qualified specialists, preferring to recruit us, lamers, who would not be taken anywhere else .
A little more detail should be told about the younger enikeyschikah, because their functions and role may raise questions for the reader (“Enikey - and as an assistant, how can he also be younger?”). The fact is that these employees did not have administrative rights on the network (yes, even there, even on their computers), nor the right to purchase office equipment and spare parts, nothing. What did they do? They carried out management orders, changed cartridges, worked in the case of a massive simultaneous dismissal of all users ( for some reason, such cases occurred quite often).
Now - about the networks that had to be maintained: 50 - 70 PCs in Vladivostok, 4 - 20 PCs in each remote unit, a lot of communicators, PDAs, tablets and other mobile devices. 8 - 12 servers in our office and one in each remote unit (of which at different times was from nine to eleven).
To fully understand the specifics, here are some quotes from the Manuals to the new enikeyschikam:
- “You have no right to refuse to solve the problem. You are responsible for the operation of the unit, not just the network. If you are told that you need to do something, do it. Even if we are talking about negotiations with the client, cleaning the premises or loading and unloading operations. "
- "You work in the" Corporation ". Who wants a “vacation”, “in the evening after work home” or “sick” - let him go to the government office. “Corporations“ don't need weaklings! ”
- "Who wants - does, who does not want - is looking for a reason not to do." Not enough server power to speed up the work of 1C three times? See the quote, in three days 1C should be carried out faster. Does a PC with 256MB of memory slow down during antivirus scanning? Buy a memory for your money or find someone who buys it for you! ( Funny curiosity: a colleague forced his users to buy licenses for anti-virus software. Anyone who needed Internet access. )
- “If something happened through no fault of yours, then it was an act of circumstances. So you're out of luck. So you are a loser. Get out! Losers do not need "Corporation"! "
And the final touch: the cult of brute force, submission and rigid hierarchy flourished in the "Corporation". Unfortunately, IT specialists were at the base of the corporate food pyramid. According to the Tradition, we had to obey all the chiefs (i.e. sales clerk, accountant, and other personalities had the right to give us orders).
I think the reader imagined the atmosphere in which the following actions took place. Remember the impression formed, it will help you understand the motives of some not quite logical, from the point of view of a normal sysadmin or supporter, decisions.
Why do we need helpdesk?
Of the eighteen to twenty hours of the working day, about half went to communicate with users by phone. It began to seem to me that real telephony was developing.
One night, my already rarely occurring dream interrupted the call. Called the girl from a distant city, an employee of the "Corporation". She had a problem, she needed a solution, and out of three enikeyschik phones she chose mine. The usual situation for IT "Corporation." But there was one moment that made me think: the caller said that in two hours she would go home, and, in principle, she needed a solution only by the beginning of the next shift (which would begin in 10 hours). And in general, she calls right now , just because then she will sleep, and she does not want to sacrifice her sleep only to inform me of the problem. Much better to sacrifice mine, yes.
“ What the hell! ” I thought. We must do something about it. By the way, the other day I read about some kind of helpdesks, it seems, this thing could save me from such idle calls, I will have to look in this direction ...
First experience - GLPI
One of the most popular (judging by the number of enthusiastic reviews) user request management systems is GLPI . The developers promised a Russian-language interface, customizable usage scenarios, integration with the hardware and hardware inventory systems, a lot of plug-ins and patches from the community, and communism in general in a single system. Reading the project forum and articles on Habré , dedicated to this system, added confidence in the correctness of its choice as an engine for the organization of helpdesk.
One night,
Morning came, the enikei department in full began to wait for a miracle. The day flared up, users faced various problems, my colleagues and I solved them, but the helpdesk ( for some reason !) Did not fill up. It was necessary to somehow motivate users to submit applications to the system.
It was decided to tell the most "advanced" and "loyal" users, as well as junior enikeyshchikam about the new system, try to convey to them the benefits of organized ( somehow ) processing applications, "lure" them with the prospect of reducing working time and in general prepare a team of evangelists , that bring the
Practice
In fact, to my great surprise, it turned out quite differently. For some strange reason, the younger enikeyshchiki treated the system completely cool. " Helpdesk? Yes, let them do what they want there in Vladivostok, I won't use any helpdesk in my % CityName ." Users went further: the “advanced” began to resist the introduction of the new system, arguing for a variety of reasons, and the “ordinary” simply ignored it, referring to “employment”, “forgetfulness” and so on.
A day passed, two weeks - nothing has changed, and, with the support of my immediate supervisor, who promised, if possible, to prevent my dismissal, I decided to apply administrative pressure and order the younger enikeyschikam use helpdesk. As a result, several applications appeared in the system, in my mailbox a mountain of letters, and on the mobile - several dozen missed calls, including from the heads of distant divisions who wanted to express their "appreciation for the next innovation." It became clear that I was doing something wrong.
Debriefing
Repeated googling, reading IT forums and descriptions of serious helpdesk products added confidence that the problem is local, and the point is not the very idea of ​​the helpdesk, but that the system is somehow incorrectly implemented. So, you need to determine what I did wrong. It was decided to start with a survey of colleagues, users, junior enikeyschikov and their leaders.
In confidential conversations, we managed to find out that the implementation participants perceive it not at all in the way that I imagined it to be. Younger enikeyschiki advanced a thesis completely unexpected for me: they do not need helpdesk. In the sense that they simply do not feel the need for any orderly organization of the process of registration and acceptance of applications.
Objections of junior enikeyschikov
Firstly, because it is impossible to “forget” an uncomfortable request. As it turned out, a lot of users wanted were cut off by the old proven method of promise to make tomorrow (often, the next day the user forgot that he was terribly annoyed by the classic OS interface or non-fancy layout of shortcuts on the desktop).
Secondly, younger colleagues were afraid of users. The latter were extremely dissatisfied with the fact that now it’s not enough just to shout into the void: “ Hey, you are there, nothing works for me! ”, But you have to write something somewhere. Naturally, as a result of the absence of me in remote subdivisions, this discontent was redirected to local enikeyshchikam (well, yes, not lordly this business - in IT grades to understand).
The third reason that caused the rejection of the system by those who, it would seem, was to become its supporter, was the fear of losing the ability to go about their business during working hours. The fact is that in those branches where we had a local junior enikeyshchik, there were certain problems with IT specialists (as well as with outsourcers): some qualified and willing to work people fled from there to Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Moscow, etc. d. Therefore, some local directors were forced to give enikeyschikam certain relief, not noticing the "left" part-time work during the working time, reading Habr and the like. The introduction of centralized helpdesk allowed managers from Vladivostok to see the degree of congestion of remote enikeyshchikov, which, in turn, should lead either to an increase in the number of official duties, or to dismissal. Looking ahead, I will say that in the end something happened, and another. Colleagues were right in their fears.
User Objections
Users also had their own claims to the system. Firstly, they
Somewhere deep down, I even understand this argument: a lonely “line personnel unit” sits on the outskirts of the city late at night, she’s already there for twelveteen hours, and she still has to hold on for at least six to seven hours (this is not interchangeable work, and, at best, a five-day, such a schedule even exhaustive enikeyschika in three or four months exhausting, what can we say about the girls-operators). She is sad, she is an expendable material, the attitude of management and colleagues to her is appropriate. And here - technical support, enikeyschiki who are ordered to "solve any problems" who are guaranteed to listen and, being good people, will help, if not by deed, then at least by a kind word. Truly, do not underestimate this aspect of the work of the internal computer help service!
Helpdesk, and even centralized, available for analysis to the management of the Center, certainly did not assume such intimacy and benevolence, so the “ lower personnel ” (quote) strongly resisted the introduction of this, in general, quite good tool.
The second reason why users dislike the idea of ​​a helpdesk is not in the system itself, but in the way I tried to present its implementation. The rule was declared: “No application - no problem”. What is bad? So that if this rule enters into practice, enikeyschiki will receive an alibi. I will try to explain what's the matter. As I have already said, the office in which the described events took place is quite large and has several levels of organization. Each higher level requires lower-level “ reports ” (offhand, 35–40 percent of employees are only engaged in preparing “ reports ” for each other). The number of tasks coming from the upper levels obviously exceeds the capabilities of the lower units in their (tasks) processing. Therefore, employees need a universal explanation of the reasons why tasks are not regularly performed on time.
And here helpdesk and generally enikeyschiki? Everything is simple: according to the established tradition, the head responsible for the assignment reports “up” that “the report was not created because the computers do not work! I called % Enikeyschik% , but he did not pick up the phone! ”. And that's all, the problem is solved - enikeyschiki get the reprimand and / or fines, and not the team that failed the task. The task itself, of course, is completed later, which is why the next one is not fulfilled on time, but this doesn’t matter much to anyone.
Naturally, in such a situation, the introduction of a system that could provide ITUs with an alibi (“I was not informed about the problem, otherwise I would gladly have solved it”) was perceived “in hostility” by middle managers.
As the third reason, the complexity of registration of the application was mentioned. It was not possible to achieve a clear explanation of what exactly the “complexity” was, and why it was more difficult to write the text on the application form than to voice it in a telephone conversation. "Difficult", "uncomfortable" and even "terrible." Additional investigation was required, which was conducted a little later. About the results - on.
Executive Objections
Naturally, the overall negative reaction of employees was quickly passed on to top-level local managers. Without being inclined to delve into the details of anything other than processes affecting planned targets, they simply accepted the negative attitude towards my initiative that their subordinates passed on to them, without delving into the details. I had to "push them into reality" to get real reviews.
In violation of all instructions and ethics of corporate behavior, taking advantage of the fact that colleagues were loaded, and the Biggest Local Boss was on vacation in Southeast Asia , I announced to local managers that I now accept applications only through helpdesk and only from them personally . To nip the “delegation” in the bud, I called each Important Uncle personally and asked them to comment on their application entry process in the system, watching through a remote connection how it looks on its screen. They couldn’t fire me right away (it was necessary to wait for the signature of the absent Big Boss), turn to someone else too, and the business demanded a solution to the problems.
Yes, I blackmailed colleagues. No, I was not ashamed, I sincerely believed that "doing the right thing."
As a result of such unethical measures, we managed to find out that the main reason for their own (as opposed to induced) hostility of the leaders of the “upper middle” level to the system is their incompetence. No, % username% , there is no contradiction: for their own incompetence, these people disliked me and my system, and not themselves. In the “Evil Corporation”, Managers cannot admit that they are wrong, this can lead to a loss of credibility.
First, it would seem that the simplest operations caused enormous complexity: pressing the “next” button (one manager even called an employee to the “session” who pressed the buttons for him, arguing that “the status does not allow him to do it himself "), opening an already opened application for editing, viewing the status of the application, etc.
Secondly, the Big Boss was very hard on the process of formulating thoughts. I don’t know how it was at the “summits”, but many managers spoke with subordinates in the Sharikov style - the speech was a set of interjections generously decorated with obscene vocabulary and thieves argo, occasionally interspersed with stamps from the
Naturally, the need to compose a written text independently (!) Caused many to have a holy thrill.
To write in the style in which oral instructions are given is unacceptable, one can lose face. Asia-s.
Secrecy was another argument against it. Some tasks simply cannot be recorded anywhere, they are transmitted to the performer in a whisper and are accompanied by an order to issue actions for their own initiative. The presence of a record that it was not the enikeyschik himself who decided to make X , but Mr. Glavnovsky ordered him, is very undesirable for the latter, therefore he will in every way choke the helpdesk back in the bud. What, in fact, they did.
Well, last but not least, many managers noted that the process of registering an application for helpdesk is degrading for them. As one of the respondents said, " Here my desires are fulfilled even before I realize them, and you want me, as the last% of the Discriminating_name of the linear_personal%, to write something else to you ." Yes, they were ready to enter applications only in their own, golden VIP helpdesk, where mere mortals would have been banned. To be honest, this moment was not completely overcome.
Result of implementation
Complete failure. Of course, I would like to say that the result was the acquisition of a unique experience (and I gained a lot of experience, without sarcasm), an awareness of practical difficulties in implementing control systems, blah blah blah ...
But here, in Evil Corporation, a clear and completely unambiguous criterion of the effectiveness of any action / event was adopted: did the values ​​of the planned indicators improve (the income of people with real power directly depended on this). And, since the aforementioned “acquisitions” did not increase the income, did not reduce costs, etc., they quickly explained to me that I had failed my own project.
What we got in the dry residue? I am a reprimand (only because of the dedication of the immediate superior, who, risking his position and reputation, defended my right to work in the Corporation and beyond, I was not fired). We enikeyschiki - hatred. I do not exaggerate, in an environment of constant tension, in the atmosphere of a cult of brute force and a rigid hierarchy - hatred ignites spontaneously, anyone / anything can become its object. Including, enikeyschik, who just wanted to streamline the solution to problems with IT infrastructure.
The leaders took revenge for the loss of face. Users at every opportunity accused me of unwillingness to work ("he is too lazy, you see, to understand for yourself what the problem is and where it is necessary for the writers to write incomprehensible "). Colleagues were also unhappy: they got everything on the principle of collective responsibility.
And most importantly, what was equally disliked both by colleagues, and the management (mine and in the field), and the users - my refusal from repentance. Instead of admitting that my actions were wrong, I declared a desire to continue the implementation of the helpdesk. Now I am ashamed: in my behavior I was like a religious fanatic. Perhaps that is why it seemed to me then that I was doing everything right.
Design conclusions
No matter how hard the coaches in corporate culture try, it is impossible to make a person believe that the goals of the Company are more important than his personal goals. An employee may make a conscious concession, but never recognize the priority of corporate tasks over his own.
The task of the company was to maximize the planned indicators, and my personal task was to implement a helpdesk. It gave a ghostly hope for at least a twelve-hour working day, a weekend, and (dreadfully enough!) Leave. Extremely powerful motivator!
Therefore, in addition to the “official” evaluation of the implementation experience, I performed my own. Below are the results.
The first thing that caught my eye was the complexity of the system, noted by almost all employees, regardless of their place in the corporate hierarchy. (, , -). , , : . — , , — (, , etc):
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— ? - I asked.
- Well, of course! Don't you see it yourself ?! - they answered.
It was the second small victory on the way to the main goal. The next stage was the search for mutual understanding with colleagues.
Luring colleagues
"There is no warrior in the field ," proverb says, and I fully agree with this statement. I understood the need to form a team then. In total, at the time of the events described, there are six of us left: one Senior Enikeyschik, three “ordinary” Enikeyschik and two younger ones. Considering that this list was limited to the whole community of people who at least theoretically could help me with the implementation, I approached it very carefully.
The priority task was considered to form the required opinion from the Senior Enikeyschik. For the simple reason that we, the rest of the enikeyshch obeyed, including him. But it was not only that; besides direct administrative authority, this man had great authority. To incline him to your side meant to get all the enikeyschikov.
The problem was that he remembered the previous experiment. I had
In parallel, I gave him specially selected links to articles on application management systems, materials on how such systems help IT professionals in large, large offices , and positive descriptions of implementations. The farther, the more frankly I forsil topic. After a while I achieved what I wanted: Senior Enikeyschik openly admitted that helpdesk is good.
This fact made it possible to fairly quickly reach an agreement with colleagues equal to me in the corporate hierarchy “merely enikeyschiki”, and proceed to the processing of our younger employees. For some time I agitated them with the same methods that were previously applied to my boss, but with less intensity. After the obviously negative attitude was replaced by the doom-neutral, I decided to act.
Understanding that, in many respects, the lack of enthusiasm for helpdesk among younger colleagues is due to the simple fact that they simply had no needs that such a system would satisfy, I decided to create these needs artificially. To this end, I suggested that the Senior Enikeyshchik shift some of the responsibilities that we carry out to our remote colleagues. The fulfillment of these duties did not require the existence of administrative rights in the domain, did not imply additional responsibilities, and, most importantly, did not imply any special knowledge / skills. Basically, they included maintaining correspondence with the Center, drawing up endless meaningless reports and, to a small extent, advising users on the most simple questions.
With this redistribution, I solved two tasks: first, I created the necessary need (the solution for which I was kindly offered a little later) from the younger enikeyschikov, and, second, I unloaded colleagues ( so much so that one of them was soon fired ) and the boss. Subsequently, the bonus was the reduction in the number of “hack-work” that remote colleagues engaged in during working hours at the expense of my employer.
So, with colleagues, the issue is resolved, it's time to move on to the most difficult task: the conviction of the leadership.
Convincing guide
The most difficult stage for me. One wrong move - and you are fired. “ There are thousands of them outside the gates, they are ready to work for food! Remember this and thank Me
As with my colleagues, I decided to act gently. Trusting I lied that after the introduction of the system, their applications will be processed faster. Why lied? Because my ultimate goal was to reduce working hours and the appearance of weekends, and not to speed up the processing of requests and troubleshooting. The synergistic effect, according to my plan, was to absorb the families and hobbies of IT people, and not the gentlemen Owners and Managers. Mean? Yes, but this is a war, albeit a small one, in-office.
In order to attract the vengeful, I began to spread rumors about "a system for IT people, not allowing them to otmazatsya." I focused on the fact that the registered application remains in the system forever, being a confirmation of the inaction of enikeyschik. A performer who has badly done his work will no longer be able to rely on what the customer will forget. No, helpdesk remembers all the sins of IT people!
To lovers of dusting their eyes and demonstrating the innovativeness of their own thinking, I said that helpdesk is really cool, and all serious boys live like that.
Well, and unshakable - he said that the implementation was agreed at the very top, rightly suggesting that no one would call there with clarifications. Yes, I am a radish.
Implementation
Well, well, everything is ready. We agree with friends that they, in the event of dismissal, shelter and borrow some money, inform the family that “I will not be home at night from February to April” and proceed. It is necessary to act confidently and clearly, while avoiding excessive forcing of events.
For a start, I ordered junior enikeyshchikov to apply to myself
For the action to work, I introduce an additional rule for myself and junior enikeyshchikov: no one goes home, even for lunch / sleep, while the system has at least one open application. I don’t touch the head and the usual enikeyshchikov, they will still be useful.
A few days later I get a valid feedback. Nicely. Based on the information received, I compose user instructions, write user cases and place materials in the corporate knowledge base (its implementation was no less epic, but more about that another time).
After that, one at a time I start to enter remote units into the system. The input is as follows: I notify the management and employees that from now on, applications are accepted only through helpdesk, I turn off my personal phone number, and I’m repeating new rules for working calls. Colleagues at this time are busy with other important things that do not involve user interaction.
I started with divisions whose employees had the least resistance. Gutless and docile - forward and no queue. And yes, I tried to transfer at first remote units, rightly believing that elementary laziness would prevent staff from coming to fill my face.
Having transferred 20–30 employees to the new rails, I felt that the process began to go easier. First of all, people saw that they were not alone (“Ivana was transferred yesterday, today I can see that everyone has such a fate”), and secondly, the
The more people turned out to be in the system, the easier it was to get the following. In the end, I even relaxed a bit and began to use the appeal to the collective feeling: “Look, everything is already in the system, only the I / You are left!” Acts almost flawlessly. Sometimes, however, it is required to kick the client more clearly: “Ivanivanych, you do not want to remain the only one who could not switch to new rails ?!”
Anyway, in a month and a half all the users of our remote divisions were in the system. Inspired by the success, I persuaded my colleagues to support my initiative on the priority service of applications filed through helpdesk, which greatly simplified my implementation in my office. There were almost no excesses, it did not go further than threats of dismissal. Vladivostok launched in one working week.
Results of implementation
Soared. Of course, during the operation some problems were revealed, of course, there are still dark corners in the network, not illuminated by the light of the formalized process of registration and processing of applications. But it is - little things.
It was not possible to simply install the system and force users to register requests in it. It would be too little, for the sake of it it was not worth doing all that was done. The result was much more "deep": the whole scheme of user interaction with enikeyschiki was rebuilt.
Timely reporting of problems
“ No application - no problem! ” This simple, but very important principle saved enikeyschikov from two very unpleasant problems. Firstly, the leaders of all levels lost the possibility of the enikeyschikov being accused of their mistakes: since everyone knows that we have a helpdesk, even the Highest Authorities will never again believe the manager, who claims that he did not complete the task on time, just because he had some - problems with the equipment, if, of course, he (the manager) cannot give the number of the corresponding application in the system.
The second most important effect of the implementation of this rule in practice was the timely informing of the IT department of any problems. Previously, in the "Corporation" was common such a thing as "Friday Rally" (instead of "Rough Trap" was used a different word, but, unfortunately, on Habré is not welcome mat). Its essence was that some "managers" in the "Corporation" had a weekend - Saturday and Sunday, which led to the following unpleasant scenario for IT specialists: an employee who discovered a problem with a PC (and there are always some problems with this ancient stuff! ) Waiting all week, accumulating tasks. On Friday evening, he calls the enikeyschiku and reports that "the computer does not work", which is why the Super-Important-Report is not filled (in our "Corporation" it was decided to penalize the late filling of the reports of the Biggest Local Boss, who, Of course, in such cases, I took down three skins from the perpetrator). Immediately after the call to the enikeyschik, he informs the Big Uncle that “ I told them about the problems with the computer a week ago, but they didn’t do anything! ” And then quietly goes home. As a result, the enikeyshchik had to not only urgently fix the problem, but also to finish his reports for the manager / to conduct the accountant’s entries in 1C-e / inventory goods in stock for logisticians, etc.
Registration of applications and, most importantly, the introduction into the practice of thinking and the corporate tradition of the provision that the only evidence that enikeyshchikov shirking work is the presence of an open application, made it possible to break this vicious circle and eradicate the described shameful practice.
I was somewhat afraid that, being lazy people, we, enikeyschiki, would cease to carry out preventive diagnostics and investigate problems in the infrastructure, relying only on user messages. But this did not happen: we quickly realized that it was easier to prevent a problem than to fix it, and we restored the previous level of prevention of problems. And even later, when we managed to free up some free time, we reached in this business just mind-blowing heights, creating an environment in which many problems simply cannot arise, by design. However, this is clearly beyond the scope of the article.
A clear description of the problems
“ No data on the problem - no request. No request - no problem! ” Of course, we didn’t require users to diagnose the problem and describe the type ” on the secondary domain controller in GPO XXX, replace the parameter YYY with the value ZZZ ”. No, although we served in the Corporation, we were not sadists.
The practice behind this slogan was created to eradicate situations in which an employee of a remote unit, located eight hundred kilometers from the nearest enikeyschik, calls and reports that “ nothing works ” for him. At the same time, the range of implied problems is huge: this capacious description includes both the banal impossibility of booting the computer and much more complicated problems: the inventory of goods in the warehouse does not converge, the customer wants to issue a refund early in the morning when there is no one except the storekeeper and the caretaker in the office ( the storekeeper does not know the operator's password to enter the accounting system and rightly believes that “nothing works” for him, because the system really does not allow him to issue a refund).
Of course, you can talk to the person, find out what he means, understand
What does this helpdesk? It's simple, it's psychology. When making a personal contact or phone call, the employee thinks (by the way, he rightly thinks) that the enikeyschik in the dialogue will himself pull out all the information from him. When writing the application, he (the employee) has to somehow formulate his vision of the problem. Many, writing something like “ oh, help, it's terrible pysch-pysch! ” While reading their own text, they themselves realize how ridiculous and uninformative it is made and correct the description to a completely understandable “ I have a square box rustling and cracking under my desk, sort it out ! ". Those who do not understand themselves, "kicks" enikeyschik.
Fast user identification
"Give your name, city and office number when contacting." . 80% of all calls to enikeyschikam began with the phrase: “Hello, it's me ! I have a problem here ! How is it where? I speak here ! For stupid I repeat: I have a problem! ”
I do not know why, but finding out the name and location of the user is often very difficult. They, users, perceive such questions as an enikeyschik's attempt to avoid fulfilling their duties (“ Why is he asking me stupid questions instead of solving a problem ”). Managers of the middle and top managers consider such questions an insult (“ How is it he, Pupkina will not know me? I will show him! He will know how to ask me who I am! Look, I turned out! It’s not Me who is he is generally who! 11 ").
Helpdesk automatically displays the IP address from which the call was registered, the name, city and position of the user. This allows in 75–80% of cases to unambiguously localize the problem. Difficulty arises when, for example, one user registers a request for a problem that has arisen for another, but such cases are much smaller, and users are taught to process the necessary data to process them. In the knowledge base there is an instruction about what exactly needs to be written in such applications.
Help user in solving problems
" We received a recommendation from the enikeyschik - follow it! ". Before the implementation of helpdesk, it was hard to get help from the user. They, users, rightly believe that they should not take any part in solving problems in the work of IT, because there are a whole bunch of enikeyschikov.
I agree with this statement, but there is one problem: understanding and accepting this installation, we, enikeyschiki, can not always solve the problem alone. When it becomes clear that the printer in the remote subdivision does not print simply because someone moved it to another place (interfered!), Having forgotten to connect it to the LAN, the enikeyschik could not materialize instantly and insert the cable into the connector. And although this “is not the user's work”, the only reasonable way out of the situation will be the independent execution of the connection by the remote employee. Just because otherwise - it is impossible. One may fine enikeyschikov in such cases as much as necessary, but this will not give them the ability to instantly move hundreds and thousands of kilometers (nor will the local kings to move the ill-fated printer).
After the implementation of the helpdesk, users' unwillingness to do someone else’s work (in this case, the work of an enikeyshchik) has not gone away. However, if users had previously received a request to “connect a long cable with a“ L1 ”sticker to the connector marked“ network connector ”of the printer,” they could simply hang up, and then declare that they didn’t say anything like that (“the client is always right, even if internal! "), now - all the moves are recorded. Enikeyschik has a real opportunity to prove that he really did everything he could. Reprimands were replaced by oral remarks, fines - reprimands.
Extra strength
“ We need to work at work! ” Prior to the introduction of a single centralized helpdesk, my younger colleagues were responsible only within their powers (remember, they didn’t even have administrator rights) and only within their own division. Not enough for a person whose salary is almost nine hundred dollars a month!
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/162749/
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