Service Desk - quick start. 1 part. Determining the purpose of implementing Service Desk

    Today I am starting a short series of articles “service desk - quick start”.

    In the cycle, it is planned to describe our own experience and give recommendations on how to build a Service Desk system in a company from scratch, based on the ITIL methodology. It is considered the introduction of a module for handling incidents, appeals and asset accounting. Other modules in this course are not considered.


    It is understood that the reader is at least superficially familiar with the basics of the methodology, but does not yet have practical implementation experience. The article may be of interest to IT managers, senior IT specialists, and entrepreneurs.
    The following articles are planned to be included in the cycle:
    • Determining the purpose of implementing Service Desk, strategic advantages.
    • Creating a service catalog.
    • Creating a single window, a single entry point.
    • Asset Accounting.
    • SLA

    ITIL is a library describing the best of practical methods of organizing the work of departments or companies involved in the provision of information technology services.
    These are not ready-made solutions, but only a set of general rules on the basis of which you can build your Service Desk, which will be unique for your company.

    The very first question you need to ask yourself: for what purpose are you implementing the Service Desk system? And do you need it?
    If you are the owner of a business, then it will depend on your answer whether to implement the system or not.

    If you are an IT manager, or a senior IT specialist, then the answer to this question depends on whether you will promote this system to the owners or not.

    When is a Service Desk system required? It seems to me easier to answer when you can do without it - in small companies, with the number of jobs less than 100, located in the same location with the number of IT personnel no more than 2-3 people.

    As soon as your company outgrows these volumes, the number of calls increases and questions to the IT department begin of the following nature:
    • Why did you forget about my request?
    • When will you finally do what I asked?
    • Why does the computer / internet / printer work so bad, etc. (substitute what is required)
    • What are these parasites doing in the IT department? etc.


    If such questions begin to appear, then the business becomes dissatisfied with the quality of the IT department.

    What gives the implementation of Service Desk:
    • Allows you to understand what is happening in principle. How often these or those users turn, how often this or that equipment breaks, how many or other high-quality services are provided.
    • Based on the information received above, you can draw conclusions about weak points. And not necessarily the problem may lie in the technique. Sometimes it’s enough just to slightly redo the program interface, and the number of calls is halved.
    • It makes it possible to plan both the development of IT infrastructure, as well as planned updates, preventive maintenance, etc.
    • It makes it possible to justify a particular decision in numbers. “The chief accountant often crashes the computer” is not an argument. “Over the past six months, the computer’s crashed 4 times in the accountant’s accountant, which led to 20 hours of downtime for this specialist” is a more compelling argument for making a decision.


    Service Desk will help you at the first stage answer the question - what exactly is the IT department doing. Is everything really so bad as users describe or are they trying to cover up their laziness / incompetence with problems with IT equipment?

    If everything is really bad, then, having the above statistics, the IT department will be able to answer what can be done to change the situation. And then the business will have to understand whether it is ready to invest the announced amounts to achieve the requested level of service or not.

    And here, the formation of the SLA and the refinement of the service catalog are already beginning, where the business compares its desires with its capabilities.
    After this comes the third stage, when the business makes sure that in exchange for its funds it receives the desired

    When negotiating with a business, it is important to remember that a business thinks in terms of money. He is not interested in technical terms. Under the ITIL concept, a business acquires a service, not equipment. If the problem sounds - 1C Accounting often does not work, then the business is not interested in either the server device or the cause of the breakdowns. He is only interested in how much it will cost to fix it and how much money will be lost if it is not repaired.

    The implemented Service Desk system allows you to abstract from specific calls and observe general trends, identifying non-obvious connections and find the root causes of problems. And as a result, fight the problem, not the consequences.

    If you have a Service Desk, then you can explain in an accessible business language what is going on, what problems are there, what are the ways to solve them, the cost of eliminating and the cost of risks if not resolved.

    The most important and the most difficult thing is that the business should be set up for dialogue. If there is no trust in the IT department, then your calculations about the need to replace equipment, invest in infrastructure, hire specialists will simply not be believed and will be forced to solve all problems exclusively with the available resources.

    If you still decide to implement Service Desk, then be prepared for an increase in the overhead costs of fulfilling applications. Now it’s not enough for the technician to pull the jammed paper out of the printer. He must register the application, classify it, make a comment, and only then close it. A business must understand this and be prepared for this kind of cost. Especially at first, while the system is only being implemented and rolled in.

    PS The
    process model can be used not only when building an IT service, but also in any other department. This will allow a better understanding of the functions of the department, its workload and improve control over the work of the staff.

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