Past Meetings and Events 2006
November 21, 2006
HDI Trillium Chapter Monthly Meeting with George Anderson
Managing Vendors - Clear Expectations for Concise Results
Time: 12:30 PM
Location: Toronto Metro Hall - 55 John Street
Premise:
The complexity of Information Systems services and software development has forced organizations to look outside of their own walls to find external suppliers to meet the technological goals of their businesses. Companies large and small must recognize the need for clearly defined objectives that have been accepted by the stakeholders, and consequently monitored through the use of KPI, ROI and qualitative evaluations. Time must be invested up front in clearly establishing the scope of work and regularly scheduled reviews of the productivity of these vendors are critical to achieving a successful outcome.
Some organizations have chosen to setup internal vendor management offices, while others rely on their project management office to provide this oversight. Regardless of the label that is applied, management needs to recognize that for projects to be successful, they must be properly guided by a new breed of staff. The financially sound and technically astute knowledge worker is the lynchpin to successful vendor management. Ironically, these colleagues or departments themselves can be provided by third party vendors; however that model is rarely as effective as someone who has insider knowledge of an organization.
It is important for any given company to thoroughly evaluate and document the goals, objectives, timelines and budget for any project to ensure that it will meet the needs of the stakeholders and to ensure that the vendors accurately quote and deliver the required service. Without such guidance, vendors can deliver mismatched solutions which lead to timeline and budget overruns as well as overall dissatisfaction with projects. One of the main reasons to hire a firm is to place the accountability with a vendor and hold him to delivering on his promises. A carefully crafted formal request procedure, and contract are the tools that can ensure a successful project. Whereas dumping an unfulfilling workload on an uninformed vendor is doomed to failure. Like so many things an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
HDI / itSMF members: $20 - - Non-Members: $35
October 19, 2006
HDI Trillium Chapter October Kick-off Event with Char LaBounty (LaBounty & Associates)
Working With Support Teams Beyond The Service Desk
Time: 11:30 AM
Location: INTERCONTINENTAL - Toronto Centre (225 Front Street West)
Room: Caledon
Premise:
Incident ownership begins the moment a customer makes an initial contact with the Service Desk--the courtesy, the respect, the end-to-end service commitment to resolve the incident/problem to the customer’s satisfaction. Every Service Desk professional understands this value and works continuously to minimize the impact to the customer’s productivity while improving quality, efficiency, and performance.
But what about the rest of the IT organization? How do we ensure the service commitments we’re making can be accomplished throughout the entire IT organization? Internal Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between the Service Desk and its other service providers are known as Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) and provide numerous benefits to the entire organization. Managing expectations, boosting productivity, measuring for adherence and improvement, and increasing employee morale are all direct advantages. They help the IT Enterprise Support organization to prioritize work, and as an incentive to provide good service, promotes better overall system performance. They help foster good relations between IT and other departments and can be used as a tool to help improve customer and employee satisfaction.
Providing a clearly defined expectation and measurable metric to evaluate compliance are key steps in establishing an effective agreement. Join us and learn how to simplify the creation of an OLA as a means to fulfill incident/problem ownership and establish clear expectations, metrics, and incentives to boost systems performance, productivity, and moral throughout the entire IT organization.
Elaine Charal
Elaine Charal, Certified Graphologist, was available throughout the event to provide one-on-one handwriting analysis that emphasized dynamic strengths of individuals. Click here to visit Elaine's home page.
HDI / itSMF members: $45 - - Non-Members: $60
Click here to download Char LaBounty's Presentation from this event.
June 07, 2006
Ron Muns - Measuring and Improving Customer Satisfaction
Time: 05:30 PM
Location: Bata Shoe Museum - 327 Bloor St. West, Toronto
Room:
Speaker: Ron Muns - CEO & Founder - Help Desk Institute (HDI)
www.batashoemuseum.com
Open workshop and ASP service presentation from HDI’s CEO and Founder, Ron Muns
Our industry depends on customer satisfaction for survival. During this informative talk, Ron will:
• Define the value proposition for improving Customer Satisfaction
• Define Customer Satisfaction Indices
• Describe how to improve Customer Satisfaction
• List the keys to measuring Customer Satisfaction
• Share findings from HDI's research with 50 companies related to best practices for trending and measuring Customer Satisfaction
• Provide a perspective on Customer Satisfaction scores using HDI’s Balanced Scorecard Service Model
• Present findings from the early adopters of HDI’s Customer Satisfaction Index tool
• Describe HDI’s CSI tool and how you can participate.
The presentation will be followed by a cocktail reception and a chance to ask questions and learn more about how HDI can help you better measure and improve your Customer Satisfaction scores!
Ron Muns, founder and CEO of Help Desk Institute (HDI), is an international leader in the help desk/customer support industry and is frequently quoted on key issues and concerns for the service and support industry. He is credited with having a significant global impact on the professionalism of the help desk/customer services industry.
Ron has published some of the most highly rated support industry surveys and workbooks, notably The Help Desk Handbook. He has more than 25 years of experience in the help desk/support industry, first as a leading "Big Six" consultant in the help desk profession, as the founder of the Help Desk Institute (HDI),as a software engineer, as the creator of several successful commercial software products, and as an IT strategist.
5:30 - 6:30 - cocktails, networking and viewing museum
6:30 - 7:45 - Ron Muns presentation
7:45 - 9:00 - coctails, networking and viewing museum
Cost: HDI Members - $30, Non-Members - $45 for admission and hors' douvres (cash bar is extra)
Please RSVP with your e-mail address and we will followup with you to obtain payment.
Please note that the below mentioned $20 for non-members does not apply for this meeting
April 03, 2006
Malcolm Fry, George Spalding, Randy Park & more!
Conference: OK, Now What?
Time: 08:00 AM
Location: Novotel: North York - 3 Park Home, 416-733-2929
Room: 2nd floor
This full day conference, geared to IT Support professionals, is designed to initiate great networking and even better learning. If you’re considering ITIL, come and listen to those that have already begun the process. If you’re struggling with strategy, meet colleagues that are also struggling. If you just want to improve what and how you do it, come and participate.
HDI members: $175, Non-Members: $250
Note: Please don't use RSVP link below, contact Sharon at (905) 780-0444 x210. Also, the $20 visitor fee doesn't apply to this conference
March 15, 2006
Working at the ‘Desk’ according to Dilbert’s Mom
Time: 05:30 PM
Location: Metro Hall
Room: 304
Speaker: Panel Session led by John Peco from B Wyze Solutions
Dilbert's mom is really the techincal brain's behind Dilbert and she also had great empathy and understanding. This panel session will discuss many aspects of working at the 'Desk'.
The audience for this session is for both Service Desk/Help Desk managers and their staff.
This is a great opportunity to share ideas and thoughts with other members. Please join us in a lively discussion and come with your questions to ask of the panel.
This will be our last session before our big one day conference in Toronto at the Novotel Hotel on April 3, 2006. Our theme - Okay, now what?
Please join us for a light supper and an opportunity to meet other Help Desk/Service Desk professionals.
February 15, 2006
Understanding what really contributes to an IT Service!
Time: 00:05 PM
Location: Metro Hall
Room: 313
Speaker: Michael Oas - ITSM (Information Technology Service Mgt) Architect
This meeting starts at 12:00 noon until 2:00pm and is Free to everyone!
Does your organization have trouble communicating internally? Do your infrastructure and application teams find it challenging to deliver end-to-end services? Do your reports fail to express the value of your organization’s IT investments? Does your organization lack clarity around service agreements and their scope? Do you have trouble expressing services that you have or intend to outsource? This session will answer these tough questions and provide an overview to a generic service categorization framework, providing terminology and criteria for describing IT Services clearly so that they can be combined to deliver true end-to-end services to your customers.
Mr. Oas is an experienced IT Service Management practitioner, and has consulted with a number of the Ontario Government’s Ministries, involved in the world’s largest sustained ITSM (IT Service Management) implementation (based on ITIL Best Practices). Prior to formally entering the private sector in 1997, he completed a successful 10-year military career as an Air Traffic/Weapons Control officer in the Canadian Air Force. His responsibilities as a Captain in the Air Force included the project management and execution of complex NORAD training and crisis management exercises, and the training and standards evaluation of his fellow Air Traffic Control officers.
Mr. Oas holds a B.Sc. in a combined major of Computer Science and Space Science from Royal Roads Military College. RRMC emphasized academic and military officer training in group leadership and team-oriented project development. He has excellent verbal and written communication skills as a result of his education, his military career and his private sector business experience. Mr. Oas holds the “Masters/Service Manager” certification in IT Service Management.
Note: Our February meeting is free to all members and non-members, guests, etc. There is no charge for either the meeting or the lunch.
January 18, 2006
Problem Solving and Critical Thinking
Time: 05:00 PM
Location: Metro Hall
Room: 304
Speaker: Nick de Jong - Service Minds
The role of troubleshooting within a service desk is twofold. One is to gather the proper information to identify what the issue at hand really is and second to use that information to remove the cause of the outage.
Since the vast majority of incidents handled by the desk have known causes and solutions, it is vitally important to identify the present issue properly so the known resolution can be found and applied. We will identify types of information required to do this effectively and the format the information must be in to find known solutions.
If there is no known solution, the information must be used in a given process to narrow down the possibilities to one logical cause. This is a disciplined process based on gathering all the required information into a set format that will steer us down a single correct path by eliminating invalid possibilities.
Participants are asked to bring copies of the ticket entry and resolutions screens of their particular call system in order to be able to apply new learning to their day to day work.
AUDIENCE: Analyst stream for Helpdesk and Service Desk analysts and new Service Desk and Helpdesk managers.
Prize Draw: one Quality Troubleshooting Techniques training course (value $450) courtesy of RADAR Solutions Group www.radarinteractive.com
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