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Line Management that Counts
Success in support organizations is driven primarily by the line managers, independent of the reporting channels that exist in your specific environment. While senior management support of initiatives is important, it is the line manager who must develop the overall plan for management of both tactical and strategic initiatives.
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Line Management that Counts
By Julie L. Mohr
Success in support organizations is driven primarily by the line managers, independent of the
reporting channels that exist in your specific environment. While senior management support of
initiatives is important, it is the line manager who must develop the overall plan for management
of both tactical and strategic initiatives.
In the tactical environment, the line manager is focused on the day-to-day operations of the
support organization. This includes the primary focus on customer-facing incident resolution.
Additional responsibilities include the elimination of the business impact of customer-facing
issues, leveraging corporate knowledge at the point of contact, and providing a high level of
responsiveness and communication. The key positions in the delivery of the tactical operations
are the level-1 and level-2 analysts, the manager and quality assurance. Tactical operations are
measured in terms of customer satisfaction/retention, mean time to resolution (in minutes); first
call resolution, speed of answer and abandonment rate.
In the strategic environment, the line manager is focused on building and maintaining a support
organization that is aligned with the business objectives both internally and externally to the
customer. The focus is on the permanent elimination of problems in the support environment
through trend analysis reporting, the alignment of the support organization with the business
needs through strong communication channels with all key business units, minimizing the
organization demands of support, and the capture and distribution of corporate knowledge. The
key positions or functions include Business Systems Analysts, Training Coordinator, Knowledge
Coordinator and any technical support partners. Strategic operational measurements include mean
time to resolution (in hours/days), operational level agreement compliance, number of relevant
solutions in the KB and aging ticket reporting/trending.In many organizations the strategic and tactical responsibilities are too numerous for a single line
manager. This will result in two positions, the service center manager and the director of
customer service, allowing both focuses to work independently but highly integrated. If the
organization is small or has limited resources, the strategic and tactical focus is lumped into one
position. The danger is that operational management in an environment with limited resources
will almost guarantee limited focus on strategic needs.
In an organization that is well aligned with the customer, an equal balance will be created to
ensure that both strategic and tactical needs are met. No matter what the reporting channel.
Professional Profile
Julie L. Mohr is the Principal Research Analyst and Author at BlueprintAudits.com. For
over 15 years, she has been passionate about service and support management providing
imaginative insight and dynamic leadership to transform service and support organizations
into best practice, customer-focused environments. She has helped over 50 organizations
including many Fortune 100 companies to implement Knowledge Management, ITSM, IT
Governance, organization enhancements, process re-engineering and service level
management. Julie is an active contributor to the future development of the industry
through speaking engagements at conferences worldwide, researching industry trends and
publishing over 150 articles on best practices. Julie has developed a support organization
maturity model and audit methodology utilized by thousands of organizations to identify
weaknesses and develop improvement plans. She is an expert worldwide instructor in
multiple industry frameworks including ITSM, KCS and COBIT. Julie is a certified Helpdesk Director and certified
¨
ITIL Service Manager. She is currently serving as VP of Membership for the itSMF LIG in Sacramento, a faculty
member with HDI and participated on the HDI Support Center Certification (SCC) standards committee. Julie is the
author of Mapping Support Processes: Blueprint for Success, The Help Desk Audit: Blueprint for Success, The Help
Desk Toolkit: Companion CD and The Help Desk Dictionary, and maintains an informative industry portal for
practitioners at www.blueprintaudits.com. She is a member of IEEE Computer Society, National Speakers Association,
American Society for Quality, Association for Computing Machinery, ISACA, PMI, HDI, itSMF and the Association of
Support Professionals. Julie is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer
Science.
You)can)contact)Julie)at:)
jlmohr@blueprintaudits.com)
+015307500240)
By Julie L. Mohr
Success in support organizations is driven primarily by the line managers, independent of the
reporting channels that exist in your specific environment. While senior management support of
initiatives is important, it is the line manager who must develop the overall plan for management
of both tactical and strategic initiatives.
In the tactical environment, the line manager is focused on the day-to-day operations of the
support organization. This includes the primary focus on customer-facing incident resolution.
Additional responsibilities include the elimination of the business impact of customer-facing
issues, leveraging corporate knowledge at the point of contact, and providing a high level of
responsiveness and communication. The key positions in the delivery of the tactical operations
are the level-1 and level-2 analysts, the manager and quality assurance. Tactical operations are
measured in terms of customer satisfaction/retention, mean time to resolution (in minutes); first
call resolution, speed of answer and abandonment rate.
In the strategic environment, the line manager is focused on building and maintaining a support
organization that is aligned with the business objectives both internally and externally to the
customer. The focus is on the permanent elimination of problems in the support environment
through trend analysis reporting, the alignment of the support organization with the business
needs through strong communication channels with all key business units, minimizing the
organization demands of support, and the capture and distribution of corporate knowledge. The
key positions or functions include Business Systems Analysts, Training Coordinator, Knowledge
Coordinator and any technical support partners. Strategic operational measurements include mean
time to resolution (in hours/days), operational level agreement compliance, number of relevant
solutions in the KB and aging ticket reporting/trending.In many organizations the strategic and tactical responsibilities are too numerous for a single line
manager. This will result in two positions, the service center manager and the director of
customer service, allowing both focuses to work independently but highly integrated. If the
organization is small or has limited resources, the strategic and tactical focus is lumped into one
position. The danger is that operational management in an environment with limited resources
will almost guarantee limited focus on strategic needs.
In an organization that is well aligned with the customer, an equal balance will be created to
ensure that both strategic and tactical needs are met. No matter what the reporting channel.
Professional Profile
Julie L. Mohr is the Principal Research Analyst and Author at BlueprintAudits.com. For
over 15 years, she has been passionate about service and support management providing
imaginative insight and dynamic leadership to transform service and support organizations
into best practice, customer-focused environments. She has helped over 50 organizations
including many Fortune 100 companies to implement Knowledge Management, ITSM, IT
Governance, organization enhancements, process re-engineering and service level
management. Julie is an active contributor to the future development of the industry
through speaking engagements at conferences worldwide, researching industry trends and
publishing over 150 articles on best practices. Julie has developed a support organization
maturity model and audit methodology utilized by thousands of organizations to identify
weaknesses and develop improvement plans. She is an expert worldwide instructor in
multiple industry frameworks including ITSM, KCS and COBIT. Julie is a certified Helpdesk Director and certified
¨
ITIL Service Manager. She is currently serving as VP of Membership for the itSMF LIG in Sacramento, a faculty
member with HDI and participated on the HDI Support Center Certification (SCC) standards committee. Julie is the
author of Mapping Support Processes: Blueprint for Success, The Help Desk Audit: Blueprint for Success, The Help
Desk Toolkit: Companion CD and The Help Desk Dictionary, and maintains an informative industry portal for
practitioners at www.blueprintaudits.com. She is a member of IEEE Computer Society, National Speakers Association,
American Society for Quality, Association for Computing Machinery, ISACA, PMI, HDI, itSMF and the Association of
Support Professionals. Julie is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer
Science.
You)can)contact)Julie)at:)
jlmohr@blueprintaudits.com)
+015307500240)
