Optimizing Your Help Desk: Summary Document

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Executive Summary

What type of help desk is optimal for your organization?

Help Desk Maturity

Help Desk Maturity

Optimize Optimize
Proactive Proactive Controlled Reactive

To optimize your help desk, you should understand both your current and your optimal state in the help desk maturity model.

Controlled Reactive
Chaos

As you approach your optimal state, costs per user decrease while performance metrics and end user feedback increase.

Chaos

This report will assist you in the optimization of your help desk by:

1. Identifying improvements that increase end user satisfaction and perception. 2. Demonstrating how to simplify the help desk and improve efficiency metrics. 3. Reducing the help desk annual cost and tickets per user.
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Executive Summary

There is always room for cost savings

Average Measurable Savings Automated Password Reset Power Users End User Training ITIL End User Self Help Remote Desktop Assistant Knowledge Management Asset Management 25% of tickets 20% of tickets 10% of tickets 10% total cost of ownership 8% of cost 25% productivity 25% tier 1 resolution 10% productivity

Most companies miss out on valuable cost saving opportunities.

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What is help desk success?

Defining your help desk and success

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Help Desk Success

Success of the help desk is defined by two inputs End User Satisfaction

SUCCESS:
Alignment of IT services with business requirements

+
Help Desk Efficiency

Please see full report for details on measuring success

A successful help desk delivers its services in a timely and cost effective manner using the right people, processes, and technology.
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How mature is your help desk?

Understanding the Maturity Model

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Help Desk Maturity

Explaining the Help Desk Maturity continuum

To understand your help desk you need to understand it in terms of Help Desk Maturity. Help Desk Maturity is based on effective use of people, processes and tools. Although the measure of Help Desk Maturity is truly a continuum, we have identified five discrete levels by aggregating common elements that occur around each level.
Maturity Distribution of Respondents 5. Optimized 1. Chaos 7% 3%

ack edb Fe ser u End ncy icie ff IT E

Chaos Reac tive Controlled Proac tive Optimiz ed

4. Proactive End Feedback

22% 42% 2. Reactive

IT Ef f ic iency

26%

3. Controlled
Please see full report for details behind the Maturity Model

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Help Desk Maturity Levels

Identifying the levels of maturity

This table maps Help Desk Maturity to the equivalent level in the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). CMMI can be used to measure maturity of IT process. Process is only one aspect of our Help 13% Desk Maturity model (people, processes and tools). 23%

Help Desk Maturity Levels

1. Chaos 2. Reactive No formal help desk. IT problems are dealt with on an ad-hoc basis. Help desk staff and tools are identified, process is defined for tracking and escalating incidents.

CMMI Levels 31%

Level 1: Process has few, if any, formal definitions 33% and performed on an ad-hoc basis. Level 2: Process is defined, executed and repeatable.

3. Controlled

Help desk processes are clearly defined. Level 3: Processes objectives are aligned with Tools are introduced for basic self service business goals and are defined with greater detail. and knowledge management. Process results are qualitatively predictable. Help desk performance expectations are Level 4: Quantitative goals are clearly set and quantitatively set and measured against. measured. Process results are quantitatively Additional tools and processes are predictable. introduced to alleviate help desk calls. Frameworks are introduced to optimize help desk costs, metrics and end user satisfaction. Level 5: There is a focus on continually improving process performance. Common causes of process performance variation are identified and addressed.
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4. Proactive

5. Optimized

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Where do you fit in the Maturity Model?

Identifying the appropriate maturity level for your organization

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Help Desk Maturity Characteristics

Factors influencing appropriate maturity level

The recommended attributes for each maturity level are determined from a cost-benefit analysis. Organizations whose recommended maturity state is below the Optimized level, could achieve a higher level but typically, in doing so, the costs will outweigh the benefits. The recommendations for each maturity level are based on a combination of the factors below.

Size IT Complexity

1. Simple 2. Midrange 3. Complex

User IT Knowledge
Please see full report for details on determining your fit.

Maturity level recommendations level off as company size increases. Small organizations may have an optimized help desk at the lowest maturity levels.
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What Should You do to Optimize?

Creating the Plan

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Help Desk Maturity Levels

For more specific guidance on assessing your appropriate maturity level, please see Help Desk Optimization Tool

Moving along the 5 stages of Help Desk Maturity

Once you have assessed your fit with a particular Help Desk Maturity Level, use the following recommendations to move along the continuum.

Level 1: Chaos

Level 2: Reactive

Level 3: Controlled

Level 4: Proactive

Level 5: Optimized

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Help Desk Maturity Levels

The three inputs that enable help desk success

This section outlines how the key inputs to the help desk People, Process, and Technology can be modified to improve the efficiency of your help desk and increase end user satisfaction. Please note that not all organizations fit the Optimized level. Based on your fit, another level may be your long-term goal.

People

Help Desk Process Technology

Please see full report for implementation recommendations for each level

Be sure to highlight cost savings in your business case for a help desk facelift. If you have difficulties gaining buy-in, management is more likely to listen when an opportunity for significant savings exists.
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Case Studies

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Case Studies

Case Study Controlled Help Desk

Company Profile Help Desk Metrics
Industry Number of Employees Number of IT Employees Number of Users Supported # of Dedicated HD Staff Cost as % of IT Budget Total Annual Cost/User Total Annual Tickets/User % of High Touch Users Education 5600 250 5600 11 3.5% $274.00 6.0 5%

Key Initiatives

Improvements Initiatives Successful

Staff training Knowledge management Power users Advanced reporting ITIL (incident management only) Full ITIL integration End user self help Service level agreement

We shut the help desk down for 1 hour every Friday and it's reserved for my hands on staff meeting. We reserve 30 minutes for training, and we also bring in guest speakers from the business, because it's good to hear what their issues are and what they do. As a result, over time, our tier 1 resolution rate has doubled.

Key Improvements Going Forward

Doubled Tier 1 Resolutio n Rate

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