Thursday, July 10, 2008
Why we never understand the tech help desk
It's because of the incomprehensible memos they broadcast across the company, like the lollapalooza a reader just sent me. To spare you the dullest post you've ever seen, I've copied it into a comment, below. Caution: Take pain relief medicine before you read it.
10 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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Here's the e-mail from IT; does anyone know what this means?
ReplyDeleteTo: Gannett IT
From: Jack Mundie
Director/Platforms. Operations and Infrastructure Services
Subject: Structure Changes
In June we announced structure changes for the Operations and Infrastructure Services (OIS) Group within Gannett IT. We made these changes to promote greater focus on specific roles and responsibilities and to better address the business changes underway. There are four areas of focus that were established in this realignment:
• Operations – This team provides 7/24 coverage within the company data centers at the Maryland Operations Center (MOC) and Phoenix Operations Center (POC). They perform and manage the day-to-day activities supporting the business needs within the data centers and those operations that extend to the local units. This team comprises the Gannett Operations Help Desk and provides the first line of support for Operations and Infrastructure Services activity. The individuals within this team will be assigned to specific shifts for coverage. We will no longer have planned shift rotations. Infrastructure Services – This team comprises technical resources associated with all platforms providing consistent and focused efforts on support related activity. As support issues are received and assigned this team will work closely together to identify root cause without duplicating efforts that today may occur across teams. This team will also provide effective and consistent communication of upcoming maintenance and support activities. This team is the owner of the system management tools (like MOM, eXc, SMS, ePO, Solarwinds, etc…) we utilize to gain greater visibility into the performance and health of our computing environment. This team will work closely with the Application teams in identifying the ties between application and infrastructure.
• Platforms – These teams focus directly on the various platforms that are deployed throughout Gannett. There are three teams that make up the platform structure: Networking; iSeries and *nix; Windows and Collaboration.
◦ Networking - This team focuses on the design and implementation of the networking, LAN and WAN, throughout Gannett. This includes network routing, switching, firewalls, remote access, and others means of communication. This team will focus on the development and deployment of a utility model for networking within Gannett. iSeries and *nix – This team will focus on the operating system and hardware planning to support future application needs using these platforms. This includes the tools for the replication of data, such as Mimix. This team will have a focused resource on consolidation activity for the iSeries platform throughout Gannett. This team will also have responsibility for the identity management initiatives that are underway both internally (Employee Identity Management – EIM) and externally (Customer Identity Management – CIM).
◦ Windows and Collaboration - This team will focus on the Windows technology, at the operating system and hardware layer as well as the collaboration services deployed throughout Gannett. These collaboration services included Exchange, SMTP, Spam, SharePoint, Instant Messaging, and others. This team is also responsible for the database architecture, design and support for MS SQL, My SQL, and other databases that are introduced within the Microsoft environment based on application needs.
• The teams will be engaged in project activity at the platform level and the associated services that are deployed within the various platforms. These teams will also provide the architecture and design of the storage environments within the company data centers and field locations. Individuals within this team will be actively involved as technical leads for various projects within the business.
• Security and Compliance – This team is closely engaged with the three areas described above with a direct focus on risk management, security initiatives, exposures, and vulnerabilities throughout Gannett at both the infrastructure and application level. This team will also create a new virtual Security Working Group that includes members from throughout Gannett rather than just Gannett IT. This group will focus on how to communicate and review the state of the company based on risk management and how to establish the enforcement for security policies that have been established. They will continue to review, update and establish policies for the business.
There will be staff rotation between the Infrastructure Services and Platform teams over time as project execution allows. The separation of responsibility between rotations will allow individuals to focus on efforts that are support based or project based with few involved in both responsibilities at the same time. Prior to these changes most everyone shared support and project responsibilities. Individuals will continue to grow in their current technical discipline and skill set. That growth has brought success to our endeavors throughout Gannett. Our goal is to have individuals develop deeper project and support skill sets within a platform area rather than attempt to promote skill development across multiple platforms.
The new structure is called Platforms, Operations and Infrastructure Services (POIS) and included are two organizational charts – reporting and working. The reporting chart portrays who an individual reports to for administrative needs and continued growth within Gannett. The working chart portrays where individuals are focused based on the four areas described above. The working chart will change as staff rotations occur. Click here to view the new structure.
Our teams are now transitioning to this new working structure. Over the next several weeks we expect this transition in focus will begin to provide greater effectiveness and efficiencies across our endeavors.
Everywhere else on earth service is provided 24/7.
ReplyDeleteWay to be out on the forefront of societal change by calling it 7/24 coverage. No doubt focus-group tested.
Or am I giving too much credit? Perhaps you only do get seven hours of service, 24 days a month....
Jesus Christ. In a company with more than a few good writers still lingering around, this is the best they could come up with? Where is my Dubow Jargon Dictionary Third Edition when I need it?
ReplyDeleteDear God.
ReplyDeleteIs this why no one answers when you call the help line?
Sigh. The biggest problem with tech-heads is that they sometimes (read: most of the time) forget their audience when writing.
ReplyDeleteThis, of course, coming from a card-carrying tech-head/writer.
OK, sure the note is not well crafted but its intended audience is Gannett IT, not Gannett editorial or the general workforce. Not everyone in the company is a professional wordsmith, cut 'em some slack.
ReplyDeleteJust remember that there are MANY groups within IT. Some are customer focused, some are tech heads. Don't paint 'em all with the same brush.
ReplyDeleteYou people make it sound like journalists are geniuses yet I've had to teach them how to turn on a computer.
ReplyDeleteI thought the whole "this is the cup holder" thing was a joke until I worked with editorial staff.
I wish they'd do less memo writing to tell each other what they already know and more correcting all the snafus in the uniform Pluck system, which stinks, frankly.
ReplyDeleteWe got yet another "upgrade" this week and are getting swamped with complaints about the already slow page loads being even slower.
To Anon @ 7/11/2008 10:36 PM:
ReplyDeleteI wish you'd actually have a clue about how your company is put together.
If you did, you'd know that Gannett IT has absolutely nothing to do with Pluck, and almost nothing to do with our website hosting. That is all Gannett Digital/GMTI.