NO MORE UPDATES TO THIS PAGE PLEASE. SUBMIT ALL FUTURE COMMENTS TO

15.1.1 Have a helpdesk pg 287

You say "With the pervasiveness of the web, there is no excuse not to have at least a simple repository...". Actually, there is. Cost. Time. We all know that such a repository will be beneficial over time, but it requires commitment and resources to create it in the first place. This means it needs to be treated as a project (effectively funded by management, whether in terms of equipment or just server resources). Further it requires maintenance and updates as things change (nothing worse than out of date documentation!) which is a further resource commitment.

A document repository is actually non-trivial.

15.1.4 Case Study pg 290

This case study actually screams another problem to me. The SA team is acting as a help desk for things outside of it's remit; NOC or facilities referral or whatever. This means they are taking calls which waste their time. They are effectively acting as a front-line support team to other departments, which is a waste of SA resources. To mea, this means the company has grown to such a size that it needs a centralized help desk which has enough knowledge to direct calls (not necessary enough to do level 1 support, but scripted calls would help) and will transfer the person live and ensure the correct team picks up and hands over. This doesn't stop the SA team have it's own helpdesk construct, but they won't be answering "time wasting" calls.

15.1.7 Helpdesk software, pg 293

"Helpdesk software" can be an ambiguous term; it can be the software the helpdesk uses to pull up answers to questions, for example. In this case you're describing a ticketing system, so "Helpdesk ticketing software" might be a better header.

15.2.4 Different "Desks" pg 297

See my comment about the Case Study on pg 290

-- StephenHarris - 18 Aug 2006