Understanding the Players of IT, a guide for Management

I know this is a little out of the typical strand of educating IT newbies, but I was asked today what a Network Eng. should know verses a System Admin and that got me to thinking about a couple of different things that I really wish Management would learn.

Now management will always ask more of their employees than they should, unless it is a governmental agency, but when it gets down too it what does a company need to cover their IT needs? I am going to go through and build out the perfect IT team and you see if you agree.

First, most Accountants try to work out the number of people in IT by how many people they support. This is a stupid thing accountants do, we just have to forgive them and move on so part of this discussion will work to justify the body count so that your CFO will sign off on it. Second, most IT managers truly have no clue as to what most of their people are doing at any given time of day, so I will try to include realistic activities that each worked would be tasked with performing on a daily basis. Third, most IT shops are overly weighted to one skill set which really makes it difficult to run efficiently. I will address each of these as I describe the positions. Now like any good team the players have to be able to perform in more than just their assigned position. Now, I would never take a goalie from a soccer team and ask them to suddenly start playing forward, however they could even if they weren't the best at it. The same is true of your IT employees, your Network Eng. should be able to support an end user if needed in a smaller shop, but it should never be one of his primary duties. On the other hand I could take a Guard from the football team and move them over to Tackle and expect them to perform the job with no problem and they should be able to handle the change and still be as good as they were at Guard. The same is true of your Network Eng. and your System Admin. in smaller shops. If you have a very limited number for your head count then some of your players really need to be well versed in multiple fields. Even in the larger shops there needs to be some over lap in knowledge simply for troubleshooting issues. I will be working from an IT shop which is budgeted for five or six employees, because we all know it doesn't matter how many you need, just what they will let you have. Well enough preaching lets get into the jobs:

Network Engineer:

The Network Eng. is you backbone, he will keep your remote sites up and the web pages flowing. He is not the guy most of your users will know real well as he is typically stuck in the basement or closet with all of the network equipment. While his primary responsibility is to keep the data flowing he should still be able to work on most Servers and be a fairly competent Server Admin when the network is calm. Every Network Eng I have ever known cringes at being called a programmer, but they should know the basics of scripting as well as some HTML, but don't depend on him to build complex Database Tables. Always remember not to over utilize this player as he should be the first responder to any outage and will be the employee with the most time spent at work after hours.

System Administrator:

The Sys Admin is your server guy, it is this player who will keep the servers working so users can access the files and programs they need to be productive. Most of your users will know his name and phone number but couldn't pick him out in the break room. The Sys Admin will spend most of his time working to keep the servers safe and secure with patches and updates, but he should also be able to deal with some of the basic networking needs. A Sys Admin should be able to configure a port on a switch for use with either a server or a user and he should also know what ports are needed for connectivity even if he doesn't know the command line interface for the firewall. Additionally, your Sys Admin needs to know not only how to install the Applications on the servers, but they should be fairly comfortable administering them and doing the basic as well as a few advanced functions with in them.

Your Sys Admin and Network Eng. should be very close. Any changers either of these two make could effect the others work and they need to communicate with each other constantly.

System Analyst/Programmer:

Not every shop has a Programmer type, but he is included here as a place holder for that guy you need to build a webpage or customize an app or even your Database Administrator. This is the job I never wanted to get stuck with. This is the worker who even when you know what he is doing, you don't really know what he is doing. Many shops have replaced the programmer with standard apps and outsourced support contracts, but most companies’ really still need one. A good System Analyst will be your go to employee for any issues with user interfaces or Database anomalies which need to be ferreted out before one of your customers end up with 1000 dohickies for $10 each instead of 10 thingies for $1000 each. A System Analyst should be as good of a Sys Admin as he is a Programmer, but he won't know nearly as much on the networking side. He does still need to know the ports for his apps and he will need to interface with the Network Eng. almost as often as the Sys Admin. does.

Many companies either drop the System Analyst and add an extra Sys Admin or they go to an in house development team. Which ever way you go make sure your player in this position knows his job duties and they are not included under the "other duties as assigned" catch all.

Help Desk Administrator:

This is the voice of IT to the users. He is often abused, and always under appreciated. No one ever calls the Help Desk to chat, they call because something doesn't work. Now while the Help Desk Admin will be out at users desk, this is the person who should be the go to guy for the users to resolve their problems or getting them to someone who can. This should also be the person who directs the work flow for any problems or trouble tickets. If you are lucky enough to have more than one Desktop Techniction then this player would be their coach making sure that the trouble tickets were divided out and taken care of. While this listing has the Help Desk Admin as the person who answers the help desk phone this would not be a Teir 1 support person. If you do have enough of a budget to have a Help Desk Tech for Tier 1 support then this would really be more of your Lead Tech, a Tier 2.5 support if you like while the players above are your Tier 3.

Desktop Support Technician:

Here finally we get to the face of IT. This is the poor guy who is sent out to the lions den to be eaten alive. Well, it's true, the life of the average Desktop support tech is short, if they are good at tech work they will get promoted as quickly as possible, if they aren’t any good they will end up making someone mad and get fired. All of the above players started out here, or if they didn't they should have. If you find someone to fill this job who is good at interacting with people and a good tech, you better pay him well. This is the guy who will have to interface not only with your users but every other player above. To be successful he will need to be able to talk to users with out talking down to them, yet he will also need to be able to translate the user’s words into something that the Admins and Programmers can understand. Additionally, a good Desktop Support Tech will be able to take that user who is mad and by the time his is done fixing the problem the user is not only happy, but now knows how to avoid the problem altogether. Desktop Support Techs are a dime a dozen, but good ones are worth their weight in trouble tickets.

Help Desk Technician:

Also known as Phone Support. This is Tier 1 support. Most IT shops do not have anyone dedicated to this job and instead have the phones set up to a hunt group so that everyone’s phone rings when someone calls into the Help Desk. If you do decide to fill this spot on your team then make sure this player is well versed in phone educate and has a good grasp of what kind of issues they might see. Since this is considered an entry level job it is wise to have your more experienced team members build documentation which will help with trouble shooting issues. These should be built in a question and answer format with the user's answers leading to the next question. Often when these scripts are built management forgets to include a point to hand off the call to the next level of support or if that is included it is not specified who is best suited to handle the call. This player for team IT is about the only one who can not step in to help out with other positions on the team, but they should be encouraged to help out and learn as they are the best source of new talent to promote as openings in the IT line up occur.
The above players are just a guide and you may find that you need additional team members or players who cover more ground than I have described. That is a common theme with in IT as there are always a large number of ways to do the same thing and none are inherently wrong. It is like Routing, there are people who stand by EIGRP and others who believe OSPF is best, yet in most instances RIP would work just as well.