Combine application assistant development and workforce enablement related to learning, knowledge management and collaboration.

IT Assist's objective when working as a member of the production support team

We provide situational training that improves troubleshooting proficiency to develop skill-sets on how to respond to normal or difficult situations and adapt as the application matures.

We engage to encourage inventiveness by individuals of the team on ways to continuously improve the application's support in areas where the value of the improvement exceeds the cost.

We tap into the collective intelligence of the support and development teams on how to improve productivity and increase efficiency.

We take stock of how the application is supported to develop or integrate tools that help with problem resolution, problem management and quicker access to external and internal information and resources required to support the application.

Finally, we lead by example and provide an environment where:

• Day to day conversations does not get lost in IM sessions and emails.
• Information contained in support tickets is front and center to enhance the team's knowledge base.
• Collaboration and knowledge sharing is not cumbersome and ties into the management of tasks the team needs to get done.

IT Assist partners with IT production support to support each of these key areas.

Application transition to production support

Documentation is:

• Broken into distinct pieces of information based on the types of issues the application can experience.
• Continuously evaluated for relevancy as the application matures.
• Created to capture the testing phase experiences.
• Easily accessible and reflects what's needed for day-to-day responsibilities and the things a new member would need to know on day one of resuming their responsibilities.

The knowledge transfer session:

• Assess training needs and involve discussions about what's required to support the application.
• Highlight the functionality of the application, underlining technology, potential failure points, resources and encourage Q&A to gain an understanding of personnel competencies.
• Move beyond the scheduled sessions to incorporate online discussions.
• Engage the team in discovering what else needs to be learned to fill in the gaps and gather feedback for the development group.

Training:

• Increase the understanding of the underlying technology, provide simulation of potential error conditions, and incorporate knowledge accumulated since product conception.
• Move beyond the scheduled sessions to also incorporate online discussions.
• Focus on day-to-day operational responsibilities.

Triage process improvement

• Remove the invisible wall between groups.
• Adopt a subscription-based model where groups can subscribe to keywords of potential incidents that impact them.
• Include a discussion thread initiated at support ticket creation with the primary groups in the call path. Replacing or supplementing sequentially forwarding a support ticket from one group to the next starting with customer facing group.
• Remove the person from the issue to reduce the "It's not our problem" mentality and refocus on resolving customer issue.

Collaboration

• Spur collaboration between development, production support and customer care organizations. Building an environment where information exchange is not lost in a sea of emails, IM sessions and close-looped help desk systems.
• Create a workspace to post questions, get feedback, collaborate, troubleshoot, record raw information captured in meetings, create tasks from conversations, log notes and ideas and be engaged.

Knowledge management

• Capture and maximize knowledge that exists within development groups to improve application support.
• Feed the product-improvement process by accumulating knowledge gained through the various support channels.
• Go through past support tickets and conversations to create a narrative about the application that enhances the knowledge base.
• Research and develop documentation needed to support the application.

Application support assistant

Development of application support assistant tools to provide a workbench to help with problem determination tied to the group's knowledge management and help desk system. Taking stock of how the product is supported to develop a mashup of tools that helps with:

• Finding key information related to the application or external resources needed for problem resolution
• Automating repetitive steps
• Easily discovering past solutions to problems
• Automating data collection and analysis
• Building a collaborative space for discussions and task management
• Self-analysis and diagnostic of problems
• Document and information management
• Providing single point of access for supporting the application and improving the group's knowledge base.

Training

• Increase the understanding of the underlying technology
• Provide simulation of potential error conditions
• Incorporate knowledge accumulated since product conception