
ITSM, DevOps, and why three-tier support should be replaced with Swarming - kiyanwang
https://medium.com/@JonHall_/itsm-devops-and-why-the-three-tier-structure-must-be-replaced-with-swarming-91e76ba22304#.q8kga8p1l
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dozzie
> The classic organisational structure for IT Service Management is the three-
> tier support hierarchy:

> \- Level 1: A frontline Service Desk, directly fielding incoming customer
> communication (typically by answering phone calls). [...]

> \- Level 2: A second tier of support, often closely associated to the
> Service Desk, but with deeper general or specialist skills. [...]

> \- Level 3: Specialist support teams focused on specific technologies and
> applications. [...]

It's amazing how one can write a description that is correct, yet so wrong and
misses the point so much.

Three-tier support structure is not centered around staff's _training_. It's
centered around the staff's _responsibilities_.

\- First tier is people who _help customers directly_. As customers usually
have most trivial problems, these people mostly need the most basic skills
from technical point of view (though the most diverse in all three tiers).

\- Second tier is _administrators_ , whose work is structured differently than
just sitting at desk phone and waiting for somebody to call. If they were to
be interrupted as often as first tier staff, their work would suffer heavily.

\- Third tier is either _programmers_ of some system or _veteran
administrators_ that sit so deep in their system that they rarely see the
sunlight. These people work on a completely different schedule than first two
tiers, who work largely (or mostly) in a reactive manner, so any interruption
is very, very costly for third tier's work. Third tier is only called when
their attention is absolutely unavoidable.

