Leveraging Good User Mojo…

About Me:

• Matt Simmons

• Northeastern University in Boston

• @standaloneSA

• Standalone SysAdmin Blog

Customers are everywhere

Identifying Customers• Lines on an Org Chart

• Service consumers

• People who ask you for things

Users == Customers

All of the things I said about customers apply to users, too

Customer Service Isn’t (just) a Job Title

• Having customers isn’t an insult

• Treating them well isn’t demeaning

• Establishing positive relationships with them will pay off for years

• You can be the difference between a great experience and misery

The Basics

Use a Ticketing System• Anything is better than nothing

• Just make sure you use it

• Even if your customers won’t

Keep Communicating• Maintain a status page

• Make it automatic if possible

• Make service window updates part of your process

• Send Update and Completion Emails

• Request Feedback

Establish Relationships• Get to know your users

• At the very least, get to know what they do

• Encourage them to let you know when things are broken

• Reward them when they do.

Computers are Easy

People are Hard

Have a Self-Service Portal• Make it helpful &

informative

• Automate IT processes if possible

• Use off-the-shell software if you can

• Pre-link to it on users’ desktop shortcuts

Be Active• Doctors make rounds. Why shouldn’t you?

• Take an interest in what your users are doing with your machines

• Anticipate their needs

• It doesn’t hurt to be sociable. Not much, anyway.

Build Two-Way Trust

• Don’t dictate policy from on high.

• Explain reasoning, even if you don’t think they’ll understand it.

• When someone exhibits responsibility, give them more.

• Work to earn your users’ trust by being honest.

• Even if it makes you look bad.

• If you let them down, make sure they know you know

Building Trust: Find Your Canary

• Contrast with: the squeaky wheel

• The importance of people who work by rote

Ignorance and Stupidity

Ignorance

• Is NOT stupidity

• IS a temporary state of being

• Should not be punished or mocked

• You were (and are) ignorant, too. So am I.

Stupidity• Should be criminalized

• Until that happens:

• Route around it

• Avoid it

• Don’t get it on you

Egos

They’re GREAT! Get one today!

Egos

• They’re great! Have one!

• Sorry, I meant Eggos.

• Eggos are great. Have one of those instead.

Egos

• WILL get you into trouble

• Impede progress

• Lead to the Dark Side

But…can’t I take pride in my work?

• Absolutely

• Disassociate your sense of worth from your work

• People are irrational meatbags

Dealing with complaints• Don’t read the comments

• Differentiate between constructive and deconstructive criticism

• They are criticizing your work, not you

• Unless they are

Treat Problems Once• Learn from Aviation and Medicine

• Documentation Shall Set You Free

• Automate, Automate, Automate

Engineer for (Human) Failure

• People (and the machines they make) are imperfect

• People (and the machines they make) fail

• Assuming things have worked right is wrong

• Failure is inevitable, so don’t treat it as exceptional

Documentation• Common Questions:

• Who am I documenting for?

• One set of docs, or two?

• How to maintain up-to-date documentation

• More importantly: Just do it.

Never do today…

• Users love automation

• Admins love automation

• You don’t have to be an amazing programmer

…what you could have a machine do tomorrow

Avoid unnecessary technical debt• Technical debt pays compound

interest

• The longer it sits, the more there is (obviously?), but the increase is exponential, rather than linear

Technical Debt Suggestions

• See if that can mesh with your priorities

• If not, convince your boss that you’re right

• Establish a timeline for your users

• Stick to it

Identify the priorities of your boss and users

Use Technical Debt as a Tool

• Don’t leave your users without a solution

• Establish a timeline

• Build in parallel

• Test with one, some, many

• Provide rollback for user data, but roll-forward with the migration

• Shoot the engineer and ship

• The borrowed debt is your new highest priority

-Borrow against it-

Technical Debt SuggestionsThe easiest work is the work you don’t have to do

Questions?