- DRAFT -

April 2007

The advanced Excel class, aka “Excel ‘N’ Finance”, is another staple of the IT curriculum and is gaining popularity. It’s being reccomended in other classes like DOR 101, Finance 101, and MOR Money. There’s even some discussion about adding it as an alternate course for U of Z finance degrees. The class is receiving lots of verbal praise from students and high scores on their evaluations. Since its debut in August, there has been at least one student in attendance each month.

- DRAFT -

I think it would be a great service if we offer more IT classes. The ones we have right now are pretty basic and getting kinda tired. I love that we’re going to have an Advanced Excel class. We should also think about working on advanced versions of our other classes. And maybe a new basic web devt / HTML class.

Great blog entry (hehe) on why blogs are good for business.

http://theundersigned.net/2006/06/why-business-blogs-are-important/

“As a business owner, having your employees blog makes everyone a marketer, everyone a salesperson.”

And as to customers potentially commenting on less-than-great experiences,
“Nothing could hardly be better for your service image than a openly solved problem and a customer whose issue has been resolved out in the open. Every service problem is a golden opportunity to impress. Nobody cares when things go right because it’s expected. What matters is what you do when things don’t go right.”

Had a wonderful time camping this weekend with Brian, Billie, and Phoebe and learned lots.

I learned that comfort is an important part of camping and that great food is not the end of radical thinking - sleeping is a territory of camping ready for new thought and I think I’m ready to move away from my tiny camp pillow to a bigger, fluffier pillow. i.e., Go for long term pleasure over short term pain.

I learned that even if you don’t know the details of how to start a fire by hand with nothing but sticks there is no harm, and much to gain, in trying, asking questions, and trying again. i.e., Enjoy the learning experience.

I learned that the art of building sand castles is alive and well and done in much more detail than I had ever tried myself. i.e., when working on any project commit oneself fully to the fullest aesthetic outcome.

And more, I’m sure.

Average Resolution Time
The average time it takes us to close a ticket after it’s been submitted to the Help Desk. Plan is 2 days resolution time. Measured weekly.
Closing Efficiency
The number of closed tickets (x) divided by the sum of closed tickets and tickets open at the end of the week (y). x/(x+y) = %

This tells us how good we are doing at handling the flow of issues coming through the pipeline. For example, a typical week starts with 10 tickets still open, about 30 new ones come in, we close 5 of the old tickets and 25 of the new ones, leaving 10 tickets still open. 30/30+10=75% A bad week would be only closing 20 tickets, or getting 50 new ones in and only closing 30 - both cases would give us a 50% closing efficiency.

Plan is 75%

Finance: Budget/Actual

With each monthly close of the numbers we will calculate how much we have spent in the IT budget to this months plan. The number will appear as a postive or negative dollar figure. Plan is $0.

Code Reds/Greens
Number of code reds and greens written/received in a week. Adding this to the DOR will help us write more of each. Plan is 2 each per week.
4 On-Site
Each IT member picks a business to spend at least 4 hours at during the week. Measure is number of on-sites completed. With 5 staff our plan is 5 per week.
Students Taught
The number of students attending IT classes. Plan is 1 per week
Classes Attended
The number of classes, tastings, dinners, seminars, etc., attended by IT staff. Plan is 1 per week.
Tickets Opened
The number of tickets opened during each week. Plan is 30 per week
New KB Articles
The number of new Knowledge Base articles written. Creates a reference section for both IT and ‘CoBbers to find answers to computing problems. Plan is 2 per week.
Back-up Failures
The number of preventable errors and failures of our back-up systems. Measuring this will help keep the number low and our back-ups successful. With the dozen or so systems we are monitoring and their inherent instability we have a weekly plan for 2.
– DOR DASHBOARD ITEMS –

Dashboard items are interesting bits we’d like to track on the side of our DOR board.

Geek Find New tech toys, gadgets, and whoseywhatsits to share info on at our weekly DOR huddle
Ticket of the Week Some tickets stand out more than others and we like to recognize those that do.

Total # of Accounts As a gross measure of the scale of Zing IT we will keep a monthly tab on number of user accounts.
Tea Expertise New knowledge, teas, paraphernalia, etc., picked up by the I.T(ea). department.

New Service Innovation A monthly focus on a new way to provide outstanding service to our customers
IT Survey Score The quarterly IT survey scores.

Backup watch Every week we rotate who monitors all the backups in the ZCoB and reports back during the DOR huddle

Virus Watch Every week we rotate who checks in on the virus protection server to tweak, fix, and update.

We provide excellent service by email/phone/notes/fax, even in person
We provide ‘always available’ support, every day, 24×7
We teach word/excel/outlook or custom one-on-one classes
We help advise on ways to improve how you use software
We provide an online knowledge-base of common computer questions
We have an awesome help desk system that tracks your issues
We maintain the backups of the mission critical data of the businesses
We keep all workstations and servers patched for security
We maintain the firewall and network routers and wireless devices
We improve the connectivity of the business networks
We clean virus and spam from all incoming email messages
We support the phones and cell phones around the ZCoB
We plan for and replace aging equipment
We do future visioning for technology to benefit the bottom lines
We serve as a bridge to various software support people
We translate geek speak into human speak
We manage vendor contracts and recommend renew or replacements
We provide technical expertise in business planning and during ZAP planning
We provide project management assistance
We help build awesome web sites for the Zingerman’s businesses
We host interns and provide them training opportunities
We provide personal advice on buying computers and other goodies
We will do a first take on repairing your home computer

Ron gave us all the monkey of creating a list of service for our department. This list is from an old KB article. I posted it for us to add, change, remove items from the list. Feel free to edit the post or leave comments.

We’re thinking of changing what we include on our DOR board. Below are current measures and some possible future measures. Please post comments or additional measures. We’ll discuss them at the next huddle.

Current DOR Measures:
Prepared?
4-On-Site
# Attending IT Classes
Clean & Tidy
New Geek Find
Average Resolution Time
Tickets Open at End of Week
Ticket of the Week
Opened Tickets
Closed Tickets
# New KB Articles
Closing Efficiency (%)

Possible DOR Measures:
Service Innovations
Codes Red & Green
Finance - Budget/Actual
Machine Age
Total Accounts
Fitness
X-tra Miles
Backups
Server Up Time
Firewall
Viruses
Spam
Happiness
Classes Attended (by IT)
PDP
Tea
Office Improvements

Raul recommends sweetening it with sugar if you’re adding milk.

“Enjoy! Although the first taste will be an unusual flavor for newcomers, it is a haunting taste that beckons you back time and time again. It’s almost as if the body knows how good Maté is for you and calls out for you to take in more.”
http://www.noborders.net/mate/how.html

Thanks to the guys who helped me out with the little card-sorting exercise earlier!

I just added a search button on the website. Tried the keyword “cookie” and came up with graham crackers, rugelach and hamentaschen in addition to all the regular cookies (the search word was in the descriptions).

http://zingermansbakehouse.com/content/pages/search.php