Redesigning Bill Vera’s IT Department (continued)
Studies have shown that in order to provide an acceptable level of desktop support, you need to have 1 desktop support person for every 70 to 100 users. With an effective 1.75 people doing desktop support, this would result in something close to an acceptable ratio (82 users/support person at the beginning of the period and 100 users/support person at the end of the period when you hit 175 users). You will probably still be swamped because of the many different Operating Systems, but I also doubt you’ll be able to convince your Director to up the total employees in IT to 4 which is actually where you should be considering that you need to manage such a disparate selection of hardware and operating systems (note: it is probably costing your organization more money putting together piece of junk computers rather than purchasing new systems. I would recommend that you take a look at the basic corporate desktop computer for an idea of what you should buy instead.)
The area you say has completely lagged because of your overwhelming workload on desktop support is system administration. You can postpone server administration for a short time if you have already invested in a good, stable server infrastructure, but eventually this will catch up with you. Servers need to be cared for. The Event Viewer on each system needs to be inspected routinely, backups need to be monitored on a daily basis and server disk space should be monitored. Also, you need to monitor all of your various corporate applications (Exchange and Financial System) and make sure there are no problems with those systems.
On top of this missing system administration function in your daily routine, it is likely you haven’t even begun planning for your next generation server operating system, desktop system migrations, HRIS and various upgrades to your infrastructure. And this area of planning is going to kill you if you don’t get some time to do something other than react to your daily support issues.
It is absolutely critical that for the next month or two you spend an hour each day trying to figure out where your organization is going. What’s your staffing going to be? When will each server be upgraded? When will each desktop computer be upgraded? How will you enhance your network? When will you migrate to Exchange 2000? When will you upgrade your Financial system? You need a budget, you need your management to approve the budget and you need to explain to him/her what will happen if you don’t get what you need to do your job (including, possibly that you will take all of your saved up vacation at once).
Actually, that’s a perfect segue into another problem. What happens when you go on vacation? Who takes over support? At least with a three person department, two people will remain behind and can cover the necessary 1.75 people for desktop support. Right now you are short .75 of a person and when you go on vacation you will be short 1.75 people. That is bad.
I can’t tell you what to do, but you need to make it very clear to your senior management that there is a crisis and that they need to do something quickly to fix the problem. If it would help, have them read this response to your letter.
I hope this has been helpful, I would like to hear what happens. Also, if you decide it’s time to move on, send me your resume. There are plenty of places all over the world desperate for IT professionals. I’m sure I can help you find one.
If anyone who reads these comments wants to provide some further advice, please write to me at letters@IThell.com.
Eric Svetcov