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Corporate IT guy here, and I think the general idea of the post is right, but maybe not the way of going about it. He's right that IT consists of people too, a
by caw 13y ago
Corporate IT guy here, and I think the general idea of the post is right, but maybe not the way of going about it.
He's right that IT consists of people too, and not automatons. It's not through sheer malice that we don't answer your support tickets, it's because there's 100 other support tickets also up in the air. There's very few IT people dedicated to projects, most of us have to mix our projects with the cries for help. The more interrupts we get, the harder it is to do productive work.
On the subject of tickets, the thing that will earn you IT gratitude is to file good tickets. The difference between "I'm getting X when I do Y" and "Is Y broken?" is immense. I explained it once to a user that if you went to the auto mechanic with "My car makes a noise", they'll be more than happy to find your noise, and they'll charge you for the time they spent finding it. If you add just a little bit more detail, they can get you on your way faster. The only difference is that you're not paying me out of pocket like you would the mechanic, so you can't tell how much time I spend tracking down nothing.
If you make it easy to work with IT, we'll make it easy to work with you. We want to work together, not against each other. If you're constantly demanding, not making clear requests, changing requirements, or dropping bureaucracy on us, then we'll concentrate our limited time on other projects with higher ROI unless there's been some kind of edict from above. With Marcus's Scott example, we want to work on his projects since they historically demonstrate high ROI. It's a win-win all around (Scott, the IT guy, and the business).
- marcuscreo 13y agoAgreed, nothing says "I Love You" like a clear, reproducible support ticket! Scott was always willing and able to help the IT folks understand the value of what was being done, which energized everyone.
- hvs 13y agoAs a developer/manager I completely agree with you and have always had good relationships with IT for this specific reason. However, I think many non-technical people (and let's be honest, they are the ones causing a lot of the issues) simply assume that "the computer guys know what's going on" because they just assume it's all magic anyway. The idea that we aren't wizards and actually have to figure stuff out may not even occur to them. That, and some people are just dicks.
- marcuscreo 13y agohvs, I think both are true. I'm interesting in helping the first group (well intentioned, but clueless) learn how to use IT better. Have you ever been able to do that?
- caw 13y agoThat's why I brought up the car analogy with the user. Most people aren't car experts either. I haven't found the perfect answer, other than refusing to work on the ticket until more detail is provided (of course, sending them a nice note asking them to explain more). Maybe in the ticketing system you could have 2 explicit text fields, "What are you seeing?" and "When do you see it?". The what are you seeing could let them type or upload a screenshot, since people like sending screenshots.
- marcuscreo 13y agoI think FogCreek does a really good job of this. When entering a ticket, they asked three simple questions: 1. What did you do? 2. What did you expect? 3. What happened instead? Just these three questions really help focus the task of entering a problem ticket.
- weinzierl 13y ago"On the subject of tickets, the thing that will earn you IT gratitude is to file good tickets." Writing a good problem description takes time, but in my experience it almost always pays off. Another thing I learned over the years: I also always try to ensure that I have only one ticket open for a given issue. This takes effort, especially when (first level) support is payed per ticket, but multiple tickets too often lead to chaos. Always ask for the ticket number when you file a ticket, always first tell the ticket number in subsequent requests and insist that they add to the original ticket instead of opening a new one. Helped me a lot.
- marcuscreo 13y agoYeah, these are great keys. I wish people outside IT could sit in our shoes for a few minutes and see how difficult it is to interpret "My computer isn't working when I access ASIGH". I mean, WTH? :-)
- sopooneo 13y agoIt is a fact of life, but still one that amazes me, how unclear most people are in their communication. And it is at least partly my issue, because I've worked with many very successful people whose written requests strike me as one step above randomly mashing the keyboard.
- marcuscreo 13y ago;limasdfo;ijasd .asdfn lol ;-)