Background

The IT department of a Blue-Chip Aerospace company was suffering a very poor image from its customers, the company's 2000 employees.   In turn, the IT department was also suffering from very low morale.

The general perception given by the users was that everything the IT department did was below expectation and that the quality of service was unacceptable.  Other departments where taking it upon themselves to set up local PC support teams, manned in the main by unqualified amateurs.  Little or no adherence to standards and technical incompatibilities and anomalies were causing a breakdown in both communications and security.

The IT department for their part, were complaining that they were undervalued and undermined by both their customers and their own IT department management, who they felt were not supporting them by turning a blind-eye to their complaints.

The Challenge

A Director level request from the company was to improve the poor image of the IT department to an acceptable level.

Modus Operandi

Initially, a couple of days was spent in informal conversation with a fairly random sample of the stakeholders.  It was soon recognised that this was an emotive issue for many people and that this was essentially a tri-partite issue with the three parties comprising; the IT department, the Users and the IT Management.  Therefore it was necessary to split the formalised template stage into three workshops. 

The IT department raised a representative sample of 8 individuals who together covered all the main functions of the department.

The Users were similarly represented by 10 individuals who comprised both engineers and administration staff.

The IT Manager was dealt with in a one-to-one workshop that followed the same process as the group sessions.

The Workshops

Each workshop was scheduled to last approximately 4 hours. A room was allocated and equipped with whiteboards, flip-charts and sufficient refreshments to ensure as little interruption as possible.

The template process is fairly fluid and begins with no pre-conceived ideas as to the issues that are likely to be raised.  Also, it is important the the coordinator does not influence any element of the dialogue, remains impartial and restricts involvement to the flow of the process.

Over a four hour period each, in the case of the IT dept and the Users, issues where identified, ranked, extremes set, and marks for expectation and perception for each trait recorded.

In the case of the IT manager, the process was approximately two hours resulting again, in a completed service template.

The results were then translated into a more usable format and analysed.

The Findings

The detail of the findings were many and complex and for the purpose of this case study have been condensed to two key issues only.  The IT manager is also dealt with although not as was anticipated.

The two group templates were very similar in terms of the issues raised and the extremes of service in each case.  There were of course differences and it was these differences that were important.  

None of the issues raised by the IT Manager were similar in any way to the other two groups and reflected more on policy than the IT department's services and the Users's needs. This in itself was significant.

For the IT department, the key issue was that they felt that they could not get on with their job because they were always "Fire Fighting".

For the Users, the key issue was that the IT department were never available when they needed them.

The IT Manager felt that his team was poorly coordinated and the Users didn't understand the importance of the IT strategy.  Furthermore, the IT Manager had little confidence in his own team and failed to recognise that it was his responsibility to guide his team.  He was more concerned with meeting targets and deadlines that with the quality of the service. 

The Solutions

For the IT team, the solution was to redefine their jobs.  They were ALL designated "Fire Fighters".  Times of fires was identified as being early mornings and following the lunch breaks.  Both periods reflecting times when Users were returning after a break. 

The instruction was that the IT department did nothing but wait for outbreaks of 'fire' between 8.00 - 9.30am and 12:30 - 1:30pm.  Outside those times their roles reverted back to that of IT staff. 

They were able to provide a much more responsive service and felt that they were able to get on with essential maintenance without interruption.  They even managed to be more effective in developing proactive solutions.

The IT department also published "opening times" that reduced their hours of availability to 8.30am to 4.30pm with NO weekend cover.  These times were a significant reduction on the departments previous perceived availability.  However, the times were widely publicised and reluctantly accepted by the Users.

Nonetheless, within a week, the result was that because in practice the IT department was waiting for calls from 30 minutes earlier and because the Users did not EXPECT service outside hours, the perception was that the department was providing a better service.  As an added bonus, IT staff were also unofficially able to offer support "Out of Hours" and at weekends, with the resulting User's perception that the IT department was now EXCEEDING expectations.

Just after the turnaround, the IT Manager left the company.

Whilst not part of the brief, calculations showed that the cost savings through the improvement of the service and subsequent reduction in lost hours, gave a return on investment inside two months.