Our Journey to a Virtual Shared

Service Desk

Christy LongDirector, ITS Services and Solutions

Mark Staub Manager for Service Delivery, ITS Services and Solutions

Cristol Gregory IT Project Manager, Penn State IT Transformation Program

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

DescriptionHow a large, decentralized, multi-campus, research institution approached, and is implementing a Shared Virtual Service Desk to create efficiencies, improve decision making, and support higher education's global mission.

Outcomes  Understand the strategic

importance of a Shared Virtual Service Desk

Learn a collaborative approach to help your institution (or organization) adopt new ways of working  

Identify strategies to help your institution (or organization) navigate implementing a Shared Virtual Service Desk

IdentifyCollaborators

Largest Cost-recovery Unit’s Service Desk Outreach (and Online Learning)

Information Technologies ~60 Staff, 24/7 Most ITSM maturity

Largest Provider of Centralized Services Information Technology Services ~600 Full time staff, 24/7

College Support Provider Smeal College of Business

Research, Instruction and Information Technology

~30 Full-time Staff

Large Campus Service Desk Penn State Harrisburg

Information Technology Service Desk

~20 Full and part-time Staff

Small Campus Service Desk Penn State York Service Desk ~4 Full-time Staff

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

5

Shared Process Development

Representative Workshops and Peer Reviews

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Developing the Processes

Start with a Baseline

• ITIL best practice

• Policy, Process, and Shared Procedure Documents

Refine

• 3-day workshop sessions

• Representatives from each early adopting unit

Review

• IT Community Peer Review

• Delphi method

• 3 rounds

7

Defines high-level guidelines Compiled in workshops and

edited through peer review.

8

Compiled in workshops and edited through

peer review.

Aligns to best practices

9

Establishes common standards Completed in workshops and

edited through peer review.

10

Document unit-level needs within shared procedures

Determined inUnit Procedure Workshops

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Providing Support Service Management Office

Ongoing Operational Support

Process Ownership 

Auditing Compliance

Document Repository

Tool and Process Training

Long-term Dev/Ops

IT Transformation Team

Transitional Project-phase Support

Communications

Tool and Process Training

Tool Development Framework

Business and Strategy Analysis

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Reaping Benefits

End users have seamless and predictable interactions with IT

Decision makers have data to be able to make resource decisions

Service providers see improved efficiency, transparency and collaboration

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Developing with Agile Quick startup

Scrum Dev ProcessKeeps requirements

in the voice of the submitters

Additive adjustments with each group onboarded

IT Transformation Processes

Process, Tool and Adoption

Incident Management 93%

Change Management 93%

Service Catalog Management 93%

Service Request Fulfillment 92%

Knowledge Management 58%

Problem Management 53%

% Complete 80%

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Viewing the Current State

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

Continual Learning Remove “current state” from

development discussion

Initial releases are about 80% effective

Expect constant refinement as each user-group matures

Choosing a tool first helps give structure to process conversation

Strong involvement and understanding by leadership is crucial

You get slower before you get faster

“Less is more” when it comes to tool development

Frequently set expectations at all levels

Implementation and operations phase are concurrent

Our Journey to a Virtual Shared Service Desk

HandoutsIncident Management primer  Change Management primer Request Fulfillment primer Service Catalog Management primerService Owner primer Service Manager primer Process Owner primer Process Manager primer Process Liaison primerDive Deeper

http://smo.psu.edu