Transforming a Helpdesk into an ITIL Service Desk

1. Jack Schmidt and Mark Kaletka Fermilab NLIT 2009 Transforming a Helpdeskinto an ITIL Service Desk

2. Agenda • Helpdesk Assessment • IT Service Management Assessment • Building the Service Desk • What We Did Well • What We Could Have Done Better • Next Steps

3. Helpdesk Evolution

4. Helpdesk Assessment Request • Management initiated review to improve service • Why doesn’t the tool work as expected? • Do we have the correct skill set? • Where are the metrics?

5. Helpdesk Assessment Findings • Unstructured customer support mechanism • Helpdesk lives in email • Drive-by / Walk-Ins • Low customer confidence • Scientists frustrated with response times • Repetitive Incidents • No proactive problem management

6. Helpdesk Assessment Findings • Uncoordinated and unrecorded changes • No defined processes for making changes. Notification of Helpdesk an afterthought. • Lack of scale • Helpdesk morphed over years • Homegrown tool based around Remedy workflow engine

7. Helpdesk Assessment Recommendations • Follow ITIL Best Practices to create a Service Desk • Stop living in email! • Upgrade Remedy Workflow to ITSM software with Incident Management tool

8. But… • Issues with getting started… • New management requirements: • Changed scope of improvement from Helpdesk to all of IT, with a concentration on ‘classic’ IT Services • ISO20000 (International Standard for IT Service Management) certification

9. ISO20K Assessment Findings • ISO20k certification possible in ~2.5 years (with help) • Many areas of tribal knowledge • Pockets of excellence • Consolidation of redundant areas of IT support will free up resources

11. Iso20K Assessment Recommendations • Use consultants to guide process design and configure tools • Use Fermilab staff for process owners • Use Fermilab staff to help define and implement processes

13. What Is a Service Desk? • Objectives • Provide a single point of contact for the users • Facilitate the restoration of service within agreed service levels • Provide an interface for other activities such as Change, Problem, Configuration, Release, Service Level, Availability and Capacity Management

14. What Is a Service Desk? • Functions • Record and track incidents and service requests • Keep customers informed on request status and progress • Assess, attempt to resolve or refer • Close incident and follow up with customers • Proactively keep users informed of all service outages, changes or improvements

15. Service Desk Game Plan

16. Prepare Workshop • Choose Incident Management Owner/Service Desk Manager • Install tool • Identify workshop participants • Subject Matter Experts • Make decisions • Agent of Change

17. Conduct Workshop

18. Develop Policies & Procedures • Identify Business Requirements • Define process and procedures to restore services • Guidance to communicate new processes • Defines policy to enable a consistent repeatable process

19. Deploy Process/Configure Tool • Configure tool with requirements gathered from workshop • Provide tool and process training • Hold simulations to test tool and process • Communications: • Posters • Electronic articles • Announce at major meetings • Staff • Increase staff size • Plenty of technical support for Go-Live

20. What we did well • Hired a Service Desk/Incident Management Manager • Provide ITIL training for key personnel • Involved the right people in the workshop! • Trained support people on tool usage • Increased Service Desk Staff • Followed defined processes and procedures • Implement process improvement procedures

21. What we could have done better • More Process and Tool Training • Build reporting structure early • Staged rollout • Follow up on open tickets immeadiately • Better explanation of future enhancements

22. Next Steps • Self Service support • Provide central notification infrastructure • Service Level Agreements into the Service Desk tool • Schedule of Changes • Develop Knowledge base

23. Questions?