The actual roles and responsibilities seen in tiered support implementations are as varied as the people, history and politics that comprise an organization’s environment. The following description of a tiered support model is typical in many organizations.
Level 1 Support
The organization providing level 1 support commonly resides in the Operations group and is typically identified as a Call Center, Help Desk, Service Desk or other similar name.
Roles
Owner of the IM process.
Level 1 support ensures that a well defined, consistently executed, properly measured and effective IM process is established and maintained.
Receive and manage all customer service issues.
Level 1 support is the single point of contact for reporting service issues, and acts as end-user advocate to ensure that service issues are resolved in a timely fashion.
First line of support.
The level 1 organization makes the first attempt to resolve the service issue reported by the end user.
Responsibilities
Accurately record incidents.
Level 1 support ensures that an incident is properly logged into the incident management system. In doing so, it must :
- Ensure that the ticket contains an accurate and properly detailed description of the problem
- Ensure that the severity/priority classification is correct
- Determine the nature of the problem, business partner contacts, impacts and expectations
Own every incident.
As the end-user advocate, level 1 support owns the successful resolution of every incident. It ensures that the IM process resolves the issue in a timely fashion by :
- Developing and managing a resolution action plan
- Initiating specific assignments for staff and business partners
- Escalating the incident as required when resolution targets are missed
- Ensuring internal communication occurs according to defined service targets
- Championing the interests of the involved business partners Level 1 support uses the problem management database to match incidents with known errors and to apply previously identified workarounds to resolve incidents. Its target is to resolve 80 percent of incidents. The remaining incidents are escalated to level 2
Continually improve the IM process.
As owner of the IM process, level 1 support ensures that the process and capabilities are adequate, and are improved when necessary by :
Evaluating the effectiveness of the IM process and supporting mechanisms such as reports, communication formats/messages, and escalation procedures
- Developing department-specific reports and procedures
- Maintaining and improving communication and escalation lists
- Participating in the problem review process
Capabilities
Interpersonal skills paramount; technical skills secondary.
Level 1 support personnel are primarily involved in triage and management of problems. Very little technical troubleshooting should occur at this level of support.
Ability to apply “canned” resolutions.
Level 1 personnel should have the ability to recognize patterns of symptoms, apply search tools to identify previously developed solutions, and help end-users implement the solution.
Level 2 Support
Also typically residing in the Operations group, level 2 support organizations are commonly called Command Centers, Network Operations Centers, or Distributed Computing Control Centers.
Roles Troubleshoot incidents.
Level 2 support investigates, diagnoses and resolves most incidents that are not cleared by level 1 support. These incidents tend to be indicative of new problems.
Owner of PM process.
Level 2 support ensures that a well-defined and effective problem management process, as previously defined, is in place.
Level 2 support uses tools and processes to ensure that problems are identified and resolved before incidents occur.
Responsibilities Resolve incidents escalated from level 1.
Whereas level 1 is expected to resolve 80 percent of incidents, level 2 support is expected to resolve 75 percent of incidents that are escalated to them, for an overall total of 15 percent of the incidents reported to level 1 support. The unresolved incidents are escalated to level 3 support.
Determine root cause of problems.
Level 2 support determines the root cause of problems and identifies workarounds or permanent fixes. They engage and manage other resources as necessary to determine the root cause. They escalate problem resolution to level 3 support when the root cause is an architectural or technical issue that exceeds their skill-set.
Champions the implementation of workarounds and permanent fixes.
Level 2 support ensures that projects are raised within development organizations to implement permanent fixes to known errors. They ensure that workarounds are documented and communicated to level 1 support staff and implemented in tools.
Proactively monitor the infrastructure.
Level 2 attempts to identify problems before incidents occur by monitoring infrastructure components and taking corrective action when defects or problematic trends are discovered.
Proactively examine incident trends.
Past incidents are examined to determine if there are underlying problems that need to be fixed before future incidents occur. Incidents that are closed without being matched to a known problem are also examined for potential underlying problems.
Continually improve the PM process.
As owner of the PM process, level 2 support ensures that the process and capabilities are adequate, and improved when necessary. They lead the problem review process to determine lessons learned and ensure that process controls, such as meetings and reports, are adequate.
Capabilities Technically competent with reasonable interpersonal skills.
Level 2 support staff should have a range of technical skills across the technologies that are supported, including networks, servers and applications. A common deficiency in level 2 support organizations is in operating system or application expertise. Further, there should not be a significant skill gap between the level 2 and level 3 organizations. Some level 2 staff should be as skilled as level 3 support staff.
Network, server and application knowledge.
The level 2 organization needs to be able to resolve incidents and problems across the gamut of technologies at use in the organization.
Level 3 Support
This level of support typically resides in the Engineering and/or Development groups within IT. These organizations are commonly called Engineering, Architecture, Network Integration, or Applications Development.
Roles Planning and design of IT infrastructure.
Typically, the level 3 support group has a minor role in IM and PM as these organizations are chartered primarily with planning and design of the IT infrastructure. As such, their goal is to implement defect-free infrastructure that is not the source of problems and incidents.
Last escalation group.
If an incident or problem exceeds the technical capabilities of the level 2 support group, the level 3 support group takes responsibility to reach resolution.
Responsibilities Resolve incidents escalated from level 2.
As most incidents are caused by previously known errors, very few incidents (5 percent) should percolate up through level 2 support and into the level 3 organization. Level 3 is responsible for resolving all incidents that percolate up.
Participate in PM activities. Level 3 support are involved in finding root cause, workarounds, and permanent fixes.
Implement permanent fixes to remove errors from the infrastructure.
Level 3 has a significant role in planning, designing and implementing projects that provide permanent fixes to the infrastructure. These projects must be prioritized along with the normal development work to achieve a desired balance.
Capabilities
Subject matter experts. Level 3 support teams should are subject matter experts who plan and design the IT infrastructure.
