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Providing Tech Support with Fewer Techs Every tech director I meet can tell a story about budget cuts in their department – and many are worried about further cuts. These tech directors are worried by this trend, because each year the responsibilities of the technology support department get larger, while the staff numbers stay the same or get smaller. Every director wants teachers, students and office staff to be able to fully use the systems, software and hardware. But how can that happen without additional tech staff members? What can you do that you haven’t tried before? Joel Sporsky, CEO and co-founder of Fog Creek Software, has an interesting perspective on providing technology support. First, he proposes fixing each problem in two ways. He suggests resolving the problem first in the traditional method of support, with a one-on-one phone call, or technician assistance. Second, take the problem encountered and evaluate the situation for the deeper solutions. At first glance, this approach appears to be counterintuitive in terms of reducing the amount of time needed to solve problems. But on further consideration, using this approach may reduce the overall time needed to resolve support issues. If you are using a tech support work order system, you may be able to extract the most common problems. To be the most useful, the technician or help desk support person needs to enter the problem as it was explained by the user. Then the technician needs to list what was done to solve the problem, and note whether it took more than one attempt to solve the problem. Reviewing the frequently occurring problems for patterns, as well as documenting and discussing the solutions to those problems, can eventually save time. Look at the problem to see what can be done to prevent the problem from happening again. Could the problem be resolved with a better error message? Can the problem be solved by pre-filling a selection box in the software or student system? Should an e-mail explaining the steps for a particular process be sent to all users, just prior to the time users will need to use it? Can a script be written so that none of the users have to complete the process themselves? Does training need to occur related to this problem? Can a podcast be created to explain the work around to a software glitch? Is there a better way to provide the information than the FAQ page? Let’s take a common problem for tech support. During the first week school site staff members return from vacation, some people will have forgotten passwords. In many districts, the request for resetting passwords increases dramatically after summer vacation. What can be done to reduce the time users have to wait to retrieve a password or have it reset? Is there a way to help people remember their password? Consider providing a reminder e-mail about passwords before the school year is over. Or suggest they send the password to their home e-mail address; suggest they change the password before they leave to something they will be likely to remember after vacation. Could more people be given authorization to change passwords at the school sites? Are there hardware or software solutions which could provide a way to reset the passwords? The bleak budget outlook in many school districts means we may not have additional staff to support teachers and students in the traditional ways. Looking for the deeper solution will take time, but may solve ongoing, time-consuming issues. If you can resolve two or three of your larger tech support issues, your technicians will have time to work on the new problems which show up each day.
Editor's Note: Tina Burkhart is the Director of District Support Services for the educational consulting firm Total School Solutions. |
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