\nNo matter what organization you choose, one of the first steps is to identify what skills you have\nand which are missing. This has two goals. First, you identify in what areas you need to train or\nhire more people. Second, it\u2019s the first step in any other kind of organization. I think you should\ninclude not only people on the help desk but also anyone you can draw on to help solve problems.\n<\/p>
Make a table with the skills along the side and the person along the top. Fill in each cell\nof the table with some indication of the skill level. Regardless of how many people are in your\norganization, you should create the table. Even with 10 people in our system administration, we had\nsuch a table. The group was small enough that we all had a general idea of the areas in which each\nperson was proficient. However, there was always the problem when someone was sick or on vacation.\nThat brought up the question of who was in the best position to solve the problem.<\/p>
Once you\nhave your table, you will quickly notice that there are holes in this table. There are certain areas\nwhere there is either no one who is really good in a particular area or just one or two. This will\ntell you where you need to concentrate your training (maybe hire some new people). It also serves as\na guide for assigning problems. Note that I said "guide." Don\u2019t assign calls strictly\naccording to this table: How you do that, we\u2019ll get to in a moment. <\/p>
There is one problem\nwith this. You may end up with dozens of different skills. When I listed all the applications and\naspects of our system, there were over 100 different entries! When trying to determine who had each\nof these skills, I noticed patterns. The MS Word expert was also the MS Excel expert and the DHCP\nexpert was also the WINS expert. It was then easy (as well as logical) to combine different groups\nso that their labels were more generic, such as "office applications" or "Windows\nnetworking." However, be careful that you do not make them too general. <\/p>
In addition,\nit may not always be possible to break the skills into general areas. When I was in support for a\nsoftware manufacturer we had to break down skills into the more-specific units. This is necessary if\nyou have a large number of calls. It is easy to get the call to the expert. How you do it will\ndepend on the number of users you support, the people supporting the users, and the skills you need\nto have. <\/p>
On the one hand, this seems like a contradiction of what I said earlier. However,\nI suggest that at the beginning you have as many categories as possible (at least during the\nplanning). Oncepatterns develop you can begin to merge the categories. However, what happens when a\nnew person comes into the group? They may only know MS Word, but not MS Excel. Do you create more\ngroups or train the MS Word experts so they know MS Excel as well? <\/p>
You might want to\nconsider having a smaller number of categories that you still assign analysts to. You can then say\nthat it is expected<\/i> that when someone knows one area in that category, they should learn the\nothers. With this in mind, you can immediately plan training.<\/p>
Another aspect is the person\u2019s\nskill level: Maybe skill levels of 0-10 is too many, but you should at least have four levels: none,\nbeginner, proficient, expert (or something similar). These levels are easier to categorize than 10,\nbecause most people would be hard pressed to find a difference between someone at level 7 and\nsomeone else at level 8.<\/p>
Normally, the person who first takes the call will have enough\nexperience to determine the complexity of the call (assuming there is no dedicated receptionist,\nsecretary, or similar).He or she can then determine if the problem requires an expert or not and\nassign it appropriately. <\/p>
The table with the skill levels needs to always be available to\nanyone assigning calls. It must be used to make the assignments. In one support organization that I\nworked for, we had one analyst who was an expert in a large number of areas. When he decided to\nlearn about other areas and got himself listed in certain categories as knowing "a\nlittle," he was assigned calls in that area as if he were an expert! The people making the\nassignments simply assumed that he was an expert in every area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No matter what organization you choose, one of the first steps is to identify what skills you have and which are missing. This has two goals. First, you identify in what areas you need to train or hire more people. … Continue reading