IT 261 Final Project Guidelines and Rubric

Overview

Imagine that you are a help desk service delivery supervisor (HDSDS) for TechWare, a national software company specializing in integrated financial systems. TechWare’s main product is an integrated financial systems software for medium- to large-size enterprises called FinWork. Its software package allows organizations to perform payroll, budgeting, accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, cashiering, and other bookkeeping and accounting functions.

The company has over 2,000 clients nationwide and provides fully hosted solutions for approximately 40% of its client base. As part of TechWare’s software support agreement with its clients, each organization is entitled to technical support for their financial software package (FinWorks). Recently, TechWare has received an increasing number of complaints from its clients regarding the level of support received from the help desk on technical issues. Hold times to speak to a technician are longer than before, and help desk requests are also taking longer in general to resolve.

The project is divided into four milestones and a final product, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold the learning process leading to a final product. The milestones will be submitted in Modules Three, Four, Five, and Six. The final product will be submitted in Module Seven.

This project will address the following course outcomes:

·  Establish key performance indicators and acceptable levels of service for given information technology services

•   Prevent the degradation of service by establishing performance baselines and monitoring service levels

·         Recommend opportunities for information technology service improvement that ensure alignment to service-level agreements based on measurement of current service levels

• Develop plans that will facilitate continuous improvement of information technology service and information technology professional communication
• Communicate key information technology concepts and solutions effectively to audiences with various levels of information technology experience

Please utilize your text, course learning resources, the Shapiro Library databases, and other reputable sites on the internet as sources of information.

                             Preparation

1. Be sure to read this entire document as well as a more detailed description of the milestones in each respective module.
2. Review the individual rubrics for specific requirements and expectations.
3. Review the TechWare Service-Level Agreement document and the TechWare Service Metrics document in the Assignment Guidelines and Rubrics folder.
4. After reviewing the assignment requirements, be sure to consider all of the concepts learned throughout the course when preparing your work. Incorporate these concepts within your project.

                                                          Prompt

Your key tasks as supervisor are to evaluate, baseline, and streamline the help desk service currently being provided to clients. You will be responsible for recommending opportunities for service-level improvement that balance the needs of the client with the realities of successfully addressing information technology (IT) issues. Ultimately, you will prepare a detailed presentation to communicate your recommendations to help desk staff, team leads, and management.

Your presentation should address the following prompt: What recommendations would you make to improve the service level and decrease customer complaints? How did you come to these conclusions, and why is it important to address these issues? Remember, you are presenting to your fellow IT team members, and as a supervisor, it is important to inspire your team members to follow your lead. Please note that the course project intent is to introduce students to the ITSM process. For the intended learning and exposure to the course project topics, assumptions can be made and any such assumptions should be documented.

The completed presentation must include all of the critical elements, in order, listed below. Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

1. Introduction to your team:

                              A.            Given the client complaints, determine the specific issues that the help desk is facing, and explain how you came to these conclusions.

2. What are some goals and objectives for a successful IT help desk? In other words, what service-level agreement standards or overall service goals need to be attained in order for the help desk to be considered successful?
1. Describe what key performance indicators (KPI) will be used to measure and track help desk performance.
2. Describe the importance of client satisfaction as a measure of IT help desk success, specifically for TechWare.
3. Explain how current help desk service-level baselines will be established. Specifically, how will you determine the current level of service and designate it as acceptable or not acceptable?
1. What stakeholders and user needs should be taken into account?
2. What is considered an acceptable level of service, and should this be static or dynamic?
3. Explain the process you designed for measuring improvement of service. What methods could be used to measure improvements (surveys, call logs, etc.)? Why is measuring performance improvement useful? What is the reasoning behind your process?
4. Explain how you plan on monitoring service levels to identify improvements or patterns.
4. Recommend methods to improve IT service levels to comply with service-level agreements (SLA) provided to clients.

                              A.            Summarize the performance requirements as outlined by the clients’ service-level agreements. Why are these important for determining areas for improvement?

                               B.            Analyze the performance deficiencies and describe their underlying causes. Perform a comparison between current service levels and those described in the service-level agreement.

                               C.            What recommendations can you provide to improve and resolve the help desk service performance concerns?

                              D.            To what extent would the recommendations you had for improving and resolving help desk service performance concerns be enduring? In other words, would your recommendations ensure continuous improvement or static improvement, and why? What could you do to instill the concept of continuous improvement in the work environment?

                               E.            What recommendations can you propose to instill continuous communication improvement within the IT team? For example, how can you monitor or provide in-house training for your team members on ways to communicate with customers?

VI. Communication:
                A. Use illustrations, analogies, and other didactic tools to express the technology terms used in your presentation to ensure comprehension by non-technical management staff. Be sure to use the appropriate level of information technology jargon/language to ensure that audiences of varying levels of IT experience can comprehend your proposal to improve service.

                                                          Milestones

Milestone One: Introduction
In Module Three, using PowerPoint (or another tool such as Prezi), create the slides and speaker notes for the first section (critical element I) of the final project.

Below are links that offer helpful tips and examples for developing your presentations:

•   Making PowerPoint Slides
•   Beyond Bullet Points: The Better Way to Use PowerPoint
•   Really Bad PowerPoint and How to Avoid It

This milestone is graded separately with the Milestone One Rubric.

Milestone Two: Metrics
In Module Four, using the PowerPoint file from Milestone One, create new slides and speaker notes for the second and third sections (critical elements II and III) of the final project. This milestone is graded separately with the Milestone Two Rubric.

Milestone Three: Current Level of Service
In Module Five, using the PowerPoint file from Milestone Two, create new slides and speaker notes for the fourth section (critical element IV) of the final project. This milestone is graded separately with the Milestone Three Rubric.

Milestone Four: Service-Level Agreement
In Module Six, using the PowerPoint file from Milestone Three, create new slides and speaker notes for the fifth section (critical element V) of the course project. This milestone is graded separately with the Milestone Four Rubric.

Final Submission: ITSM PowerPoint Presentation
In Module Seven, using feedback from prior milestones, consolidate and finalize your final project. Be sure to consider the communication requirements (critical element VI) and make appropriate updates to meet these requirements. This submission is graded with the Final Project Rubric.

                                                  Deliverables

                             Final Project Rubric

Guidelines for Submission: You have two options for submission of this project:

1. Submit a PowerPoint presentation (or use another tool such as Prezi): If you choose to submit a presentation, you must include speaker notes. These notes should be written as you would speak to your audience, and they will be used to assess your attention to each of the critical elements listed in the prompt. There are several links provided that will help you create an audience-appropriate presentation and notes.
2. Presentation Recording: Your second option is to record yourself giving your presentation. You must make sure that each slide of your presentation is visible so that your instructor can view the presentation for evaluation. With this option, you must ensure that the instructor can hear you verbally present your project as well. You may record yourself standing in front of a room (it can even be an empty room) as you work your way through your project (requiring a webcam and recording software, as in this video example), or you can use tools such as Jing or Camtasiaso that you can click through your presentation directly on your computer while capturing your verbal explanations. Using Jing or Camtasia will probably be the easier option for recording your presentation, as it will require less in terms of technology and resources.

Instructor Feedback: This activity uses an integrated rubric in Blackboard. Students can view instructor feedback in the Grade Center. For more information, review these instructions.

Rubric Annotations