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.
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
College Medical Center Long Beach
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
10
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
Administer the Collaboration Assessment Questionnaire.
Run the Collaboration Assessment Tool.
- Collaboration Assessment Score
Complete the Service Desk Maturity Assessment.
- Current State Assessment
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
Review service desk and collaboration maturity.
- Collaboration goals, metrics, and KPIs to track
Conduct a SWOT analysis of Tier 2 and Tier 3’s perspective.
- SWOT analysis
Review best service support practices.
Clarify goals.
- Identifying target state
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
Discuss Info-Tech’s IDEA model for team effectiveness.
Brainstorm target improvement plans.
Discuss and document strategies to increase adoption.
Brainstorm objections and anticipated questions to formulate a consistent response.
- Process adoption strategy
Identify stakeholders and key players in shifting company culture.
- List of key stakeholders
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
Review current knowledgebase management processes.
Create an amended knowledgebase management workflow.
- Improved knowledgebase management workflow
Identify key stakeholders.
- List of key stakeholders
Identify scope of mentoring program.
Define roles and responsibilities.
Define the feedback and evaluation process.
- Mentoring Program Guidelines
Build a communication strategy.
- Communication Strategy
Identify milestones for communications.
- Communication Plan