1. Be a Leader AND A Manager: Leaders share and communicate a common vision (of some future state); they gain agreement and establish the forward direction. Leadership is more than just telling someone what to do – it is inspiring them and motivating them by giving real world examples and ongoing guidance Good Leaders motivate […]
The 5 Key Requirements of a Successful Project Manager Read More »
As an IT professional, it is incumbent upon you to continue developing your skills and knowledge as that is the only way to ensure that you are current with what is considered “best practice”.After all – while you might think of your skills at work as being similar to Wolverine’s, you’ll realize that he didn’t
CSI & Benchmarking Read More »
What is it? In its simplest form, a helpdesk is a group of people assigned to assist customers in solving their problems. There are many different types of helpdesks and they are called by a variety of different names depending on the function that they serve, however the main point to make clear is that their purpose
A very important point to remember at all times is that you need to have a more aggressive Internal SLA vs. the one that you are offering to your customers. I know it sounds self evident doesn’t it, but there are no end of organizations that I’ve dealt with where customers are offered a 4hr
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SLA’S Read More »
Diagram of a matrix organisation (Photo credit: Wikipedia) With large projects having all the required resources to hand is sometimes a difficult job in itself. While systems and hardware are easily acquired, the skills and specializations that people can bring to bear need time to develop. You could “hire” for it, but to some extent,
MATRIX MANAGEMENT AND PROJECTS Read More »
DMAIC There is a great quote somewhere that goes something like – “If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it!” … this is so true and especially so in the Customer Service and Operations area. There are great KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and not so great ones. The key is choosing the right one
KPIs AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT Read More »
OK, to start with it’s not a desk that helps people! A help desk is a team of individuals (generally support staff) that provide solutions and resolutions to customers experiencing problems. Generally working at the 1st tier of the support model they are responsible for Incident reporting and resolution vs. Problem Management (I shall discuss
WHAT IS A HELPDESK? Read More »
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs I’ve mentioned LinkedIn a couple of times now (Using LinkedIn to Find a Job, Using LinkedIn Effectively) and find that its a really great tool not only to keep in touch with old work colleagues and keep apprised of whats going on in your industry but also to find a job! LinkedIn’s
As a manager, it is a key requirement to ensure that your team is appropriately trained on the minutiae of the job. How to find customer information, how to respond to customers, dealing with Irate customers and troubleshooting issues are obviously all things that you would ensure that your team receives. However, how important is
MANAGEMENT TRAINING AND SELF IMPROVEMENT Read More »
