Who Needs a Help Desk, Anyway? (166280920)

7/29/2019 Who Needs a Help Desk, Anyway? (166280920)

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WHO NEEDS A HELP DESK, ANYWAY?(A Short Progress Report)

Duncan Sutherland

Technology Director and CTO

Vermont Law School

[email protected]

March 13, 2013



Vermont Law School…



VLS Mission Statement:

“To educate students in a diverse community that fosters

personal growth and that enables them to attain

outstanding professional skills and high ethical values with

which to serve as lawyers and environmental and other

professionals in an increasingly technological and

interdependent global society *emphasis added+.”





• A bit about us: Private, independent law school

Located in South Royalton, VT (“SORO”)

Established in 1972; first class in 1973—113

students

Currently 512 students 64 faculty, and 110 staff

ABA (1978), NEASC (1980), AALS (1981)

JD, LLM, MELP, MERL and more coming

On-campus and DL (currently non-JD degrees)

#1 environmental law school (5 years running)

And…




Like virtually all law schools, confronting the

radical changes taking place in legal education

and in the market for lawyers!

Thus, under significant pressure to do more

with less!



And then there was Irene…



And then there was Irene…

• Tropical Storm Irene (August 28, 2011)• New Technology Director (September 13,

2011)

• “Dancing with Irene”

An opportunity to rebuild our technologyinfrastructure

An opportunity to rethink how we plan,

implement, and support technology post-Irene

• And so,



•Pre-Irene we had an IT department of about a dozen

folks, 8-10 of whom were performing some level of

Help Desk functions at any given time

• Very long-in-the-tooth technology infrastructure

• Totally unmanaged end-user environment

• Many under-skilled students, faculty and staff • Historical culture of “How do I make it green…?”

• A Help Desk staff that liked to help

• A world suddenly turned upside down

• Frustrated customers, frustrated IT department

Confronting the challenges…



• New conceptual underpinning for ‘IT’ • New organizational architecture

• New mission(s)

A fresh start…



New conceptual underpinning for ‘IT’…

• Organizational Learning theory

The detection and correction of error.

—Argyris and Schön (1978)

The way firms build, supplement, and organize

knowledge and routines around their activities

and within their cultures and adapt and develop

organizational efficiency by improving the use of the broad skills of their workforces.

—Dodgson (1993)



New conceptual underpinnings for ‘IT’…

• But, what kind of an ‘IT’ organization would bothencapsulate and enable both Argyris’ and

Schön’s and Dodgson’s definitions of

organizational learning?



New organizational architecture…

Language shapes how we think about the world.

—Benjamin Whorf

• The name of the department was changed

from ‘Information Technology’ to simply

‘Technology’

The word ‘technology’ refers to the making, modification,

usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques,

crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to

solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a

problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output

relation or perform a specific function [emphasis added].

—Wikipedia




• The term ‘Help Desk’ was banned! A help desk is a resource intended to provide the customer or

end user with information and support related to a company's

or institution's products and services. The purpose of a help

desk is usually to troubleshoot problems or provide guidance

about products such as computers, electronic equipment,

food, apparel, or software [emphasis added].

—Wikipedia




• Shift the organization’s focus from ‘computers’to ‘technology’

• Shift the organization’s focus from technology-

as-thing (i.e., computers) to technology viewed

as tools situated in use (i.e., tools inextricablyinterwoven with business processes and

organizational culture)




• Department reorganized into two groups: – Technology Operations

– Technology Competency

Competence (or competency) is the ability of an individual to

do a job properly.—Wikipedia




So, where’s the Help Desk?




Here… …and here!



New mission(s)…

• Technology department Provide the technology required to become a learning

organization

• Technology Operations Build and manage great tools

• Technology Competency Technology Business Partner’ model, ‘business unit’ focus

Ensure that the organization is competent in the use of the

tools required to do their job properly

‘Organizational lead’ with respect to business process

reengineering (both technology-enabled and non-technology-enabled)

Collaborate with HR on training and technology-related

professional development



New mission(s)…

• Every ‘problem’ reported (or discovered) is alearning opportunity!

• Mantra: Drive ‘Help Desk’ calls to zero!



Progress report…

• Critical ‘enablers’ (all post-Irene): Standardized on Windows 7 and Office 12 (migrating to

Server 2012 and SharePoint 2013 currently; migrating to

Windows 8 and Office 13 in FY14)

Totally managed environment

Technology ‘Fit Test’ (fully leverage NERCOMP!)

• Overall, the new model appears to be

working ‘Help Desk’ calls have dropped dramatically

We remain, however, in a transitional period



Progress report…

•Challenges Dealing with break-fix issues

Change management

Staff changes (both replacement and re-skilling)

Hiring

Budget

Culture change (students, faculty and staff)



Progress report…

•Will we ultimately ‘succeed’? It depends on how we define ‘succeed’

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of

success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a

new system. The innovator has the enmity of all who profit by

the preservation of the old system and only lukewarm

defenders by those who would gain by the new system.

—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1515



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Who Needs a Help Desk, Anyway? (166280920)

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