Ideas List
As a follow-up to my "What Would Make A Difference" post, I wanted to show some of the ideas that were presented. I'd originally said that one central theme surfaced. That was true after the first meeting, but not after the second (and then a third). There were some commanalities, but not quite as obvious as the first session indicated.
Regardless, just for anyone interested, here's the list of topics that were suggested across the three different meetings. No particular order, except a minor bit of trying to put similar items near each other, which became more frustrating that I'd anticipated. Some of these are rather Perimeter-specific, so don't get too concerned if something makes no sense.
1. Implement Provision Networks
a. Deployed
b. Reliable
c. “Better than Citrix”
2. Enlist “non-Jim” trainers
a. Not instead of Jim, in Addition to!
b. Address work and home, staff and non-staff
3. Computer Training
a. Personal and Departmental
b. Enrichment (make it another benefit of being on staff)
c. “Power Sessions”
d. Outreach to non-staff, and even non-Perimeter
e. Tie to appraisals?
4. “Don’t ask Twice”
a. When we should already have information, don’t ask for it again
b. Let people self-audit the info we have for them
5. Resolve the “How long has it been like that” issue
a. Regular revalidation of systems, users, configurations, knowledgebase, usage
b. WYSK (including what we (IT) Should Know)
c. TPOV, including the repeatable part
d. What about a scroller on the Intranet for special events, emergencies?
6. Defined and enforced roles
a. Each individual needs to do fewer types of things
b. “Anti-scattered”
c. Clear responsibilities
d. Clear understanding of limitations
e. Dedicated Project time
f. Clarify (segregate) research/development from Support/Operations
g. Shorter Project list? Prioritize and Sort
h. Resource Management
7. Perform in such a way that the staff wants to use our services, rather than needing to use our services
a. Above and Beyond, including “friendly”
b. Pre-implementation problem resolution. Fix it before anybody knows about it
8. Helpdesk Feedback
a. A survey?
b. Feedback for training, and support, and deployment, and all else, as well?
c. “What do you want from us?
d. Runners?
9. Phones for Helpdesk
a. Phone in AND Phone response
b. “Instant” feedback (acknowledgement, at least)
c. 15 minute response? (SLA?)
d. Focused days, or people, for resource allocation
10. Helpdesk Ticketing System
a. SharePoint template?
b. Also helps with KB development
c. Use Remote tools => show + teach + fix + better communication
d. Metrics
e. Go beyond IT: FAC, TEC, HR, etc
f. Escalation and dispatching
g. SLA (Service Level Agreement)
11. Status Board (86 board)
a. Can we “tell” so they don’t have to “ask?”
b. Inform, inform, inform
12. Productive Meetings
a. Agendas
b. Scribes and Facilitators
c. Actions / Next Steps / Recap
d. “What do we want to accomplish?”
e. Standards for meetings: Templates
f. Post meeting notes into central location for reference
13. Meetings need action points
a. What to track
b. Accountability
c. Prioritization
d. A right place to save action items. (for all staff)
e. Who makes decisions on actions?
14. FINISH projects
a. Stop abandoning
b. Intentional abandoning vs. accidental abandonment
c. Prioritization – first things first
d. Possibly: separate research from development from operations from support
e. Time multi-plexing: can we segment?
15. Project Planning
a. Avoid pre-announcing
b. Think through entire schedule
c. Do the research work before making the decision
16. “Successful” implementation of ProvisionChMS
a. All 12 points presented to the EMT
b. The whole package – CRM, GP, web interfaces, etc.
17. Embrace SharePoint Document Management
a. Versioning
b. KnowledgeBase, templates, approval processes
c. Processes for Document Flow
d. Archive/purge
e. Search “minimizing” (make sure best answers come up quickly)
f. Document structure, document management, are a definite part of thisi. Style, layouts, templates
ii. Search
iii. Archive, Duplicate Elimination
iv. Approval process, versioning
18. Storage/Document cleanup
a. Archive Rules
b. Document “quality” indicator that can be used in metrics
19. Unified Calendar
a. All church events
b. All staff items
c. Include volunteers
d. Group calendars (dynamic groups)
e. Hooks to MS-Communicator, or similar
20. Match document level (espec KB) to user level
a. User levels: “dummies”, regular, experts
b. One document with multiple sections: Exec summary => more info => details?
c. Is “whatever” for dummies a good thing?
21. “One Right Place”
a. Every type of item, data, whatever, should have one, and only one, clearly right place to be saved
b. Likewise, only one right place to look for anything
c. Search should automatically determine
22. More people interaction (and less KB)
a. What if we drop “all” documentation and instead invest in people on the phone or in person?
b. Or, should we do both?
c. Work on hiring and skill levels. Can we build teams to deal with the knowledge gaps?
d. “If people don’t care, we can’t fix it.” Can we? How do we get people to want to care?
e. Do things for people, rather than training them to do it. Bulk Mail, for instance
23. Vision/Mission/Goal alignment (systems or processes, or both)
a. Processes, communications, review
b. Anticipate needs
c. IT “owes” staff some management tools
d. Tie to “one right place”
e. Linking tools to make it easy to get from item to item, document to document, etc.
24. IT “Booklet” (or “Support” Booklet) giving high level “who to talk with”
a. Quickly address the who, what, when, where, how for common things
b. For uncommon things, still gives an idea of where to ask
c. Yet another “must be fast to find” (search)
d. AND, some should actually be printed for those who don’t think to search. Small starting place
Have I mentioned that I especially like 12 & 13? :-)
Posted by: Richard Dolan | February 08, 2008 at 10:41 PM