Chapter 8 Summary

Technical support thrives in a team setting because no single person can handle every issue or know every product. A successful team requires more than just assembling skilled individuals—it needs shared purpose, trust, open communication, and a commitment to growth through stages like forming and performing. Each team member plays a unique role based on their skills and style, whether as a challenger, collaborator, communicator, or contributor. Service desk teams must align with their mission and use tools and data to measure and improve performance. Effective communication and constructive feedback are vital to team success, while poor communication can undermine it. Ultimately, working on a service desk can be demanding but rewarding, and true success comes from active contribution and teamwork

Glossary

  • application of training investments
    A comparison of an analyst’s resolution percent and reopen percent before and after attending training.
  • collaboration technologies
    Technologies that enable multiple users to work together on related tasks; also known as groupware.
  • DevOps
    A cultural and professional movement that emphasizes communication, collaboration, and integration between software developers (Dev) and IT Operations professionals (Ops).
  • early life support (ELS)
    The stage in the service lifecycle that occurs at the end of a deployment and before the service is fully accepted into operation (ITIL definition).

Glossary continued

  • wrap-up mode
    A feature that prevents the ACD from routing a new inbound call to an analyst’s extension.
  • wrap-up time
    The average length of time an analyst was in wrap-up mode during a given period of time.
  • reopen percent
    The percentage of closed incidents that had to be opened back up within a given time period.