How Agile rescued the Telegraph’s service desk - Carol Johnson, Daily Telegraph

© Telegraph Media Group 2015

Carol Johnson

Head of Service Delivery & Operations

Telegraph Media Group

How Agile Rescued the

Telegraph’s Service Desk


OUR STORY


OUR PRODUCTS


1855 2012 1994 2010 2009 2014

1994 - First newspaper to launch a website 2005 – First regular podcast by a newspaper in UK launched 2009 – Launched iPad apps 2013 – First general interest newspaper to introduce a pay meter in UK

INNOVATION


16.8m people each month cross platforms


Supported locations & employees

• Approximately 1200 staff

• Mainly based in Victoria

– Foreign correspondents

– Journalists in the field

– Call Center - Chatham

– Sales Team - Media City

– Small branch offices


Operations Strategy

• Transform IT from a vendor management group

to a business focused solutions provider

• Ask at every opportunity

“Is this in service of our customers”


What issues do TMG staff need help with?

• Getting the paper published daily

• Ensuring the website & mobile apps are available 24x7

• Computer support

• Hardware & software requests

• Printer management

• Mobile device support

• Account Management inc password resets

• Network support

• Systems support

• Application Support


MAY 09

Service Desk

Outsourced FEB 12

Planning starts to

outsource all IT

Operations to a new

provider

MAY 13

Start of new

outsourced

contract

The outsourcing journey

OCT 14

Outsourced

contract ends

December

New CIO joins

TMG. Agile

introduced

July

Contract

terminated

April

Contract

Review

Outsourced relationship failed after just 18 months

Business lost faith in the credibility of IT services


SLA Quality

Challenges

VS

Difference in cultural currency


Pain Points

• Inexperienced staff

• Low skillset

• Poor communication skills

• Lack of transparency

• Poor resolution times

• Usability of tool was bad

• Limited reporting and lack of transparency


The Service Review

“ shenanigans ”

The contract was driving the

wrong behaviours


Deciding the future

“make it better today than it

was yesterday”

“minimum viable product”


THE PLAN


● Bring the service back in house without derailing the

business

● Complete the implementation within 3 months

Goals


Requirements & challenges

What skills / behaviours do we need to do the job?

Can we recruit within 60 days? And if not, can we run initially

with only 50% of the team?

How do we measure performance of individuals?

Do we know what key processes we need to keep the

service running?

Can we get these in place quickly?

PROCESSES

TOOLS

Do we have the tools available?

Are they efficient, integrated with our other systems & can

we manage/control them? If not, can we get these quickly?

What training is required to support & use?

PEOPLE


The ITSM Vision

One team &

one way of working;

Automation & scale

Quality service

over SLA

Delivering

speed of service

integration over isolation

Customer is served above all else

Self Service

Setting & meeting

expectations

Common language &

communicate more


Achieving faster delivery

Initial

Goal

Real

Goal

Agile Plan

Analyse Plan Design Build Test Deploy

Design

Test

Build

Design

Test

Build

Design

Test

Build

Traditional Plan

Achieved in 3 mths


Value in all, however first statement is valued more

Agile Manifesto


Customer

Satisfaction

Highest Priority

Grow & work in a cross functional

team

Early and

continuous delivery

Agile Principles

Simplicity < = >

Less is more

Effective face to face

communication

Build Around Motivated

Individuals


Evaluate out

of the box

solution

POC

Configuration

Changes for

MVP

Incorporate

Changes Cutover

Rolled out

new solution

in 13 weeks

3 weeks

Implementation Approach

5 weeks

KB Setup

2 weeks

Training /

Induction &

Beta Testing

2 weeks 1 week 1 hour


Staffing Model for Implementation

• Helpdesk

– Moved to an on-call basis for OOH support

– TUPE’d 4 staff

– Recruited 4 new staff including Team Lead

– Modified shifts to align to peak periods

• Desktop Support

– TUPE’d 3 Staff

– Recruited 2 new staff

– Modified shifts to align to peak periods

• Enterprise Operations


• Application Support



Daily Stand-ups - staying on track


OUR TOOLS


Our Tools


Welcome JIRA Service Desk

Legacy JIRA Service Desk

Usability feedback Poor Great

Customisability Poor Great

Self Management Poor Great

Flexibility Poor Great

Reporting & visibility Manual Reports £ Out of the box Dashboards &

Reporting, exports & SQL

Extensibility / integrations Difficult £ Easily configurable & custom

add-ons

HAPPY USERS ENGAGED SUPPORT

TEAMS

WELL-INFORMED SENIOR

MANAGEMENT


Ingredients for Success

Willing & able participants

no need for :

experienced developers or

extensive professional services


RESULTS


created since October

Service Desk

tickets

23,575


98.7% Tickets resolved


What we improved in the first 3 months

30% Increase in number

of contacts

66% Reduction in

number of days tickets are resolved (average)

20% Increase in fix at

first contact

50% Reduction in call

waiting times (average)


Easy to configure dashboards


Easy to configure reports


Easy to configure ticketing portal


Request Types


Personal View of Tickets


Easy to configure KB using Confluence


LESSONS LEARNED & WINS


What did we achieve / learn?

• Selected, designed & built an integrated

Service Desk tool - 3mths

• Seamless cut-over (only 50% recruited)

• We can improve quality whilst handling increased

volumes

• Matching staff availability to peak periods


Keys to our success

• New Process: Agile approach

– Responding to change over following a plan

– Individuals & interactions over processes & tools

– Control of tool chain was critical for

transformation


Keys to our success

• Recruiting to match our vision & values

– Teams are motivated to achieve and deliver

– Behaviours over SLA drove better customer

experience


Keys to our success

• Being realistic : Minimum viable product (MVP)

– Do we need it all

– Whats the best we can achieve in the timescale

• Fast failure and change is good


Rated 4 or above (see key) Jan Feb Mar

Getting what I need from the Helpdesk is easy 42% 50% 100%

When I contact the helpdesk their knowledge is great 58% 83% 100%

Speed at which my issues and requests are resolved is great 42% 60% 100%

The updates & communication I receive for my issues or

requests is great

42% 83% 100%

The support provided by the Helpdesk is great 42% 67% 100%

● Volume of responses has reduced significantly since October ● Ratings continue to improve, renewed trust in the service ● Volume of escalations remains low

Customer Satisfaction


Service issues

July (Outsourcer)

August (Outsourcer)

October (TMG)

November (TMG)

December (TMG)

P1 0 2 1 9 2

P2 43 30 14 19 15

Insourcing has enabled us to respond faster to fixing issues and reduce the number of P2s

66% Reduction in Service failures

Reducing Service Failures


Speeding up Transformation

• No blocker to multiple web releases

in a day; provided we have the

functionality

• Defined changes

• Implied ownership

8 days

1 day

New Tool

1 step approval process

Daily sign off

meetings introduced

Outsourced Tool

4 Step Approval Process

Weekly Sign Off meeting

Revised definitions

2 Step Approval Process

(1 step some cases)

Twice Weekly Sign off meetings introduced

5 days

Improved approval process for implementation of new products & services

2013 2014 2015


Continuing to deliver the vision

Password reset tool for Windows Logins

Self Help Guides available on the intranet

Improved app to resolve session & launcher issues

Auto alerts for printers (toner replacement / jams) reduced business interruption by 20%

Better Products & Services

Self Service ticketing

Improved Communication

Empower the Customer / Self Service

Proactive over Reactive


Summary

• Delivering - quicker, simpler & better

• Focus is now on quality support for the customer

• Talented team with clear roles

• Fantastic achievement by the team effort

• Continued positive feedback

• Ongoing improvements to deliver a world class service


THANK YOU