Increase Support of Tier 2 and Tier 3

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Did you know?

60-90% of change initiatives fail, costing organizations dollars off the bottom line and lost productivity.
70% of change initiatives fail because of people-related issues, which place a major burden on managers to drive change initiatives successfully.

What causes change initiatives to fail?

The shift-left strategy alone is not enough for infrastructure managers to get buy-in from their tier 2 and tier 3 technicians.
Despite best efforts, infrastructure managers are left with a dysfunctional system, fully entrenched silos, and resistance to process changes and sharing knowledge.
Not everyone embraces their role in shift-left. Organizational culture and resistance from the IT team to buy into the shift-left strategy will trump the strategy every single time.
Senior leaders are often unaware of their impact on employee engagement and company culture and may not know what practical steps to take to effectively shift the culture of the company to support shift-left.
Managers are often too busy focusing on the process elements of change; as a result, they neglect major opportunities to leverage and mitigate staff behaviors that affect the entire team.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

The IT department has to take a holistic and collaborative approach to service support. Silos and the “us vs. them” mentality lead to a break down in knowledge sharing that costs companies not only from a fiscal standpoint, but also in wasted time and a high attrition rate from unsatisfied employees.
Culture change has to start from the top and trickle down. If executives are not willing to change the way they behave, attempts to shift the culture will fail every time. As a leader or manager, think of ways you can spend time working in teams across functions, silos, and organizational boundaries. Encourage greater cross-functional collaboration among executive leaders as well as your analysts and technicians.
Communication is the key driving force for communication and adoption. It is important for leaders to take a proactive approach to this information and leverage it to improve communications and buy-in from Tier 2 and Tier 3.
Use mentoring to break down your silos. Sixty-six percent of Millennials leave their employer in less than five years. To reduce attrition, companies need to nurture and develop their employees through mentoring, which will in turn create an environment of agility, collaboration, and transparency.

Impact and Result

Info-Tech’s tools and guidance will help you shift the IT department's culture to one that supports collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the shift-left strategy.
This project will help you:
- Create a more holistic and collaborative IT department that fosters collaboration, knowledge sharing, and skills development.
- Increase buy-in from tier 2 and tier 3 technicians.
- Decrease time and cost to resolve service desk tickets.
- Build a scalable mentoring program to foster inter-tier knowledge transfer.
- Create a stronger and more engaged team by enhancing employee experience and improving company culture.
- Build day-to-day recognition practices into the IT department to increase team efficacy.
- Create a consistent customer service experience for service desk patrons.
- Build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.
- Enhance demand planning and trend reporting.

Increase Support of Tier 2 and Tier 3 Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should focus on increasing support of your tier 2 and tier 3 technicians to the shift-left strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Increase Support of Tier 2 and Tier 3 – Executive Brief

1. Conduct a gap analysis

Conduct a current-state assessment of ticket handling and collaboration, and identify key operations metrics, benchmarks, and areas of required improvement and opportunity.

2. Shift the culture

Develop the building blocks to increase team efficacy by reducing resistance, enabling leaders, improving communication practices, and incorporating recognition practices into your IT department.

3. Improve knowledge sharing

Develop the building blocks of improving collaboration and knowledge sharing by reviewing knowledge management practices, designing a mentoring program, and building an internal communications strategy.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

College Medical Center Long Beach

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Workshop: Increase Support of Tier 2 and Tier 3

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Gather Relevant Data

The Purpose

Conduct a current-state assessment of the existing service desk.

Key Benefits Achieved

Assess the process maturity, level of collaboration, and quality of tickets and calls to create a benchmark for the project.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Administer the Collaboration Assessment Questionnaire.

1.2

Run the Collaboration Assessment Tool.

Collaboration Assessment Score

1.3

Complete the Service Desk Maturity Assessment.

Current State Assessment

1.4

Conduct the Ticket and Call Quality Assessment with your team.

Ticket and Call Quality Assessment

Module 2: Conduct a Gap Analysis

The Purpose

Conduct a gap analysis between the current state of service support and the target state.

Key Benefits Achieved

Review the process maturity, collaboration, and key metrics of service support and define the target state to build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Review service desk and collaboration maturity.

Collaboration goals, metrics, and KPIs to track

2.2

Conduct a SWOT analysis of Tier 2 and Tier 3’s perspective.

SWOT analysis

2.3

Review best service support practices.

2.4

Clarify goals.

Identifying target state

2.5

Identify metrics, benchmarks, and reports.

Defining how success will be monitored and measured

Module 3: Empower Leaders to Shift the Culture

The Purpose

Identify strategies to improve team efficacy and gain buy-in from Tier 2 and Tier 3.

Key Benefits Achieved

Build day-to-day recognition practices, identify key stakeholders in the culture shift, create a standardized approach to handling resistance, and design a communication plan and strategy to optimize results.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Discuss Info-Tech’s IDEA model for team effectiveness.

3.2

Brainstorm target improvement plans.

3.3

Discuss and document strategies to increase adoption.

3.4

Brainstorm objections and anticipated questions to formulate a consistent response.

Process adoption strategy

3.5

Identify stakeholders and key players in shifting company culture.

List of key stakeholders

3.6

Brainstorm and document day-to-day recognition practices.

Recognition guidelines

Module 4: Improve Knowledge Sharing

The Purpose

Improve knowledge sharing by creating a mentoring program.

Key Benefits Achieved

Improve knowledge sharing and bridge the skills gap by designing a mentoring program and improving knowledge management processes.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Review current knowledgebase management processes.

4.2

Create an amended knowledgebase management workflow.

Improved knowledgebase management workflow

4.3

Identify key stakeholders.

List of key stakeholders

4.4

Identify scope of mentoring program.

4.5

Define roles and responsibilities.

4.6

Define the feedback and evaluation process.

Mentoring Program Guidelines

4.7

Build a communication strategy.

Communication Strategy

4.8

Identify milestones for communications.

Communication Plan

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Author

Dianna Bradley

Contributors

Robert Osmond, Director of Information Technology, Virginia Department of Transportation
Joel Kraft, Director, UGEN & Executive Support, Case Western Reserve University
Alvin Alcantara, Senior Manager IT Service Management, Convergys
Dusty Dezell, IT Security Innovation Manager, Colorado Springs
Associate Director of Information Technology, Pharmaceutical Company
6 anonymous company contributors