1. Optimizing Your Help Desk: Summary Document

2. Executive Summary What type of help desk is optimal for your organization? To optimize your help desk, you should understand both your current and your optimal state in the help desk maturity model. As you approach your optimal state, costs per user decrease while performance metrics and end user feedback increase.

3. Executive Summary There is always room for cost savings Most companies miss out on valuable cost saving opportunities.

4. What is help desk success? Defining your help desk and success

5. Help Desk Success Success of the help desk is defined by two inputs SUCCESS: Alignment of IT services with business requirements End User Satisfaction + Help Desk Efficiency Please see full report for details on measuring success A successful help desk delivers its services in a timely and cost effective manner using the right people, processes, and technology.

6. How mature is your help desk? Understanding the Maturity Model

7. Help Desk Maturity Explaining the Help Desk Maturity continuum To understand your help desk you need to understand it in terms of Help Desk Maturity. Help Desk Maturity is based on effective use of people, processes and tools. Although the measure of Help Desk Maturity is truly a continuum, we have identified five discrete levels by aggregating common elements that occur around each level. End user Feedback IT Efficiency Please see full report for details behind the Maturity Model

8. Help Desk Maturity Levels Identifying the levels of maturity This table maps Help Desk Maturity to the equivalent level in the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). CMMI can be used to measure maturity of IT process. Process is only one aspect of our Help Desk Maturity model (people, processes and tools). 13% 23% 31% 33%

9. Where do you fit in the Maturity Model? Identifying the appropriate maturity level for your organization

10. Help Desk Maturity Characteristics Factors influencing appropriate maturity level Please see full report for details on determining your fit. Maturity level recommendations level off as company size increases. Small organizations may have an optimized help desk at the lowest maturity levels.

11. What Should You do to Optimize? Creating the Plan

12. Help Desk Maturity Levels For more specific guidance on assessing your appropriate maturity level, please see “Help Desk Optimization Tool” Moving along the 5 stages of Help Desk Maturity • Once you have assessed your fit with a particular Help Desk Maturity Level, use the following recommendations to move along the continuum. Level 3: Controlled Level 5: Optimized Level 2: Reactive Level 4: Proactive Level 1: Chaos

13. People Technology Process Help Desk Help Desk Maturity Levels The three inputs that enable help desk success • This section outlines how the key inputs to the help desk – People, Process, and Technology – can be modified to improve the efficiency of your help desk and increase end user satisfaction. • Please note that not all organizations fit the “Optimized” level. Based on your fit, another level may be your long-term goal. Please see full report for implementation recommendations for each level Be sure to highlight cost savings in your business case for a help desk facelift. If you have difficulties gaining buy-in, management is more likely to listen when an opportunity for significant savings exists.

14. Case Studies

15. “We shut the help desk down for 1 hour every Friday and it's reserved for my hands on staff meeting. We reserve 30 minutes for training, and we also bring in guest speakers from the business, because it's good to hear what their issues are and what they do. As a result, over time, our tier 1 resolution rate has doubled.” Case Studies Case Study – Controlled Help Desk Doubled Tier 1 Resolution Rate