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NewsCorner Feb 2014

QualityHelp Newsletter - February 2014


QualityHelp Newsletter - February 2014

We welcome our site members as well as all new and regular readers to our latest Newsletter. What happened to the month, and the first 2 months of the year? Having just returned from Melbourne (Australia) where the annual White Night festival was staged, I wanted to use a couple of vivid images I obtained in this month's banner. 

This month has seen us embark on an ambitious project where we take a practical approach in understanding some aspects and benefits of the "cloud" phenomenon.  Over coming months we want to explore document management and synchronized sharing of team work instructions in particular, but also all other records and procedures that need to be "controlled" according to company standards and policies. These may also need to conform to some auditable Quality Management system (eg. ISO 9001).

Starting this month, we have also started disecting the roles and responsibilities of the core positions in the IT Service Management functional areas, starting with the IT Operations Manager.  We'll endeavour to cover at least one area per month, focusing initially on the manager roles.

I have personally been on a campaign this month to recruit new site members and article contributors, and I also plan to provide a number of training presentations over the coming months (in Sydney) for introductory Drupal cms and our QualityHelp site. These will be catalogued in the new document catalogue we are slowly developing (and available to members).

Have a great month, and always seek a balance of work and ample leisure time. Also strive to inject some fun into your work day and team.

Ken Darwin (Site Facilitator)

Recent Articles

Is Quality Management Rocket Science?

Many of our IT Support colleagues continue to shy away from actively particpating in Quality Management programmes, complaining of "Rocket Science", ever changing methodologies and complex terminology.  A well planned, communicated and phased-in Quality Management system is definitely not Rocket Science.  Unfortunately, for many organisations without firm, visible and enduring commitment, Quality Management tends to becomes an "inexact science".

Without the foundation of complete, genuine staff involvement, along with a culture of relentless Continuous Improvement, Quality Management remains an "Inexact Science" in many circumstances.  Understandably, staff and even customers will relegate the company's new Quality Management programme to the category of "Rocket Science".

HelpDesk or IT Service Desk

Some of my colleagues have questioned our use of the term HelpDesk for a stream of articles and support.  Given that our site objectives are centred around some of the core ITIL Service Management disciplines, then the question (aka customer query) for overlooking "IT Service Desk" is worthy of some discussion. Whilst the ubiquitous Wikipedia provides a fair stab at defining the accepted differences, for this discussion (ie Help Desk versus Service Desk), we'll simplify the differences as:

HelpDesk         -  Provide rapid response to paying customers and end users for information, services and issue resolution, related to company products and services.

ServiceDesk   -  An ITIL function providing a central, single point of contact for all clients and users of a company's services, including IT support services, especially problem, incident and request management.

Building a Cloud based Document Control System

This is one of a series of articles on the subject of managing records and documents, in a cloud environment. Our approach at QualityHelp will be to provide a practical, progressive and interactive format to the articles, blog discussions and our evolving Document Control framework.  You can get involved by reviewing  the structure of the Control Records, Master Catalogue, Team Indexes and Document templates as we develop the framework and components. Then provide feedback and input - suggestions and constructive comments.

Participate in our site's Continuous Improvement objectives and become a contributor to the evolving design.

Recent News

update: Added Cloud Resources Index

As a part of our ongoing quest to demystify Cloud technology through practical projects (eg. our Document Control Catalogue), we have started off a Resources Index for Cloud Storage and Services providers.  Our intention is to add links to other resources and training providers (free or paid).

news: New Team Members

The QualityHelp Community has been on a "recruitment" drive this month to attract more members and contributors to the team. Over the last 6 months or so a few of the team have moved on, and we'd like to inject some new ideas into the overall project. Contributions for all areas are sought, especially Helpdesk, Project Management and Desktop Support.

news: February Report and Focus

It's good to see a fair bit of movement ths month in a few areas and directions. The HelpDesk stream has kicked off and we hope to have a few more people getting involved in this vital support area.

The new Document Catalogue format is progressing nicely, and we hope to build on what we think is a solid, innovate foundaton. Ceratainly the approach of integrating the QualtyHelp document control standard record header will facilitate the growth of a far more dynamic and flexible indexing system, that wll be far easier to maintain than our orginal table format.

news: Using the new Catalogue format

The format for our site's new document catalogue tool is slowly taking shape, and seems to be well received at this point. We plan to expand it's usage and functionality as a means of further demonstrating the strength and versatility of the Drupal modules utilized (Views and Quicktab Panels).

update: New Catalogue Design

Our web team is working on a variation of our Views based registers to model Document Control system built into a hierarchically structured Catalogue.  The entry point for the system is the Master Catalogue, and the initial edition is available for readers to review and provided feedback.  See the feedback form in our most recent article, Building a Cloud based Document Control System to post comments and suggestions.

Quality Help Community - Overview

The Quality Help Community is a collaborative network of IT professionals with an interest in Quality Management and Quality Assurance based solutions in the IT industry. With collective participation, we hope to demystify Quality Management and it's effective application within the IT services and support industries.

 Our Vision at QualityHelp is to guide IT support folk in the principles and value of quality management through team involvement and sharing.

 

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