Quiz: What Type of Service Desk Analyst Are You?

Have you ever wondered what your “service desk analyst style” is? Well, look no further than our quiz. In just five short questions (plus one bonus question for fun), you’ll learn what your service management style is and what type of environment you’re likely to thrive in, whether you prefer structure or to march to the beat of your own drum.  

For the purposes of this quiz, we will use the term “service desk analyst” which refers to any member of the IT service desk whose responsibilities include providing technical support to end-users and resolving tickets, incidents, and problems. This includes service desk analysts at any level of their career and skill level.

To take the quiz, write down the number of your answer. At the end, you’ll find your service management style based on how you answered in each category.

Question 1: What is your ideal workday?  

1. Coming to work and collaborating with my team to tackle incidents or problems together.
2. Clocking in, following the guidelines, and resolving tickets by myself.
3. Coming into a big problem that my team can swarm to resolve.
4. I don’t like knowing what each day will hold but prefer to do what needs to be done however I am asked to do it.

Question 2: How do you feel about formal guidelines or rules?

1. They can be helpful in the right situation, but sometimes problem solving goes outside of guidelines.
2. Love them! The more guidelines there are, the fewer opportunities for mistakes or miscommunications.
3. Guidelines are helpful, but I prefer to learn through experiences and then improve our processes using what I learned.
4. Each incident or problem requires a unique approach, and sometimes a rigid framework is needed while other times it’s not. 

Question 3: If you were stuck on a remote island, which of these books would you bring with you?

1. The Ultimate Guide to Agile ITSM by Nancy Louisnord
2. IT Change Management: A Practitioners Guide by Greg Sanker
3. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland
4. I’d rather write my own book on the island.

Question 4: What is your ideal management style?

1. Guided without micromanaging – I like the service desk to function like a consumer service brand where we are able to help our customers with a variety of methods and technologies.
2. Frequent check-ins between team and manager, with knowledge available when I need it. I enjoy being given the tools I need with guidance on how to use them.
3. Manager working alongside the team. I like for there to be a queue manager or someone in charge of the process, but who ultimately steps in to help solve problems alongside the team.
4. All of the above

Question 5: Which metric or KPI do you value the most?

1. Cost-per-ticket: this metric can be the guiding light for areas to optimize.
2. Ticket re-open rate: this metric tracks tickets that were previously marked resolved but were re-opened for any reason.
3. Incident response time: this measures the amount of time to not only respond to, but resolve a ticket.
4. Level-0 Success or Failure rate: this directly relates to the number of tickets successfully resolved through self-service measures.

Bonus Question: For fun, which character from the television show The Office do you most identify with?

1.  Michael Scott
2. Dwight Schrute
3. Jim Halpert
4. Pam Beasley

Results

Looking at your answers to the questions above, we have broken down the following four service desk analyst styles.

If you answered with Mostly 1’s: Agile

Your service desk analyst style is Agile. Agile is a mindset that fosters flexibility and adaptability.

Much like world-famous boxer Muhammad Ali, your instincts at the service desk are to adapt, bob, and weave, constantly moving and changing so as not to be knocked down by a challenger.

Like Ali, you know that the service desk must be agile enough to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”

As new technologies and developments are released and refined in rapid succession, you know that the organization must be flexible enough to quickly respond to the changes in customer demands.

That doesn’t mean you aren’t open to, or already embracing, other methodologies or frameworks like ITIL or scrum, but that your default mindset is often thinking in terms of how to stay agile rather than how to stay within a set framework or guidelines. 

If you answered with Mostly 2’s: ITIL/Traditional

Your service desk analyst style is traditional, likely thriving with the framework of ITIL. ITIL has evolved greatly with the addition of ITIL 4, and you see the value in following this evolution.

ITIL describes best practices, processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists which are not specific to any singular organization or technology. These practices can be applied to knowledge management strategies and can be used with ITSM software.

You know that these best practices can bring stability and value for the customer, and have worked to learn how to use this framework to create a customer-centric mindset.

If you answered with Mostly 3’s: Scrum/Swarm

Although you hold some Agile practices, ultimately you thrive in an environment or team with scrum and swarming techniques. Swarming and scrum are not completely separate but are instead two pieces of a more comprehensive agile strategy.

Scrum is a cost-free framework for software development which makes it easier for organizations to maintain products and processes. In scrum, you learn by doing and your findings are the guiding light for the next step. Think of scrum like the scientific method – constantly experimenting, understanding, and evolving. Scrum has core values, including Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, and Openness.

Swarming brings the idea of the hive mind, and it’s true this is the idea behind the agile methodology – a group working together to quickly problem solve. It removes the hierarchy and enables a cross-functional structure and collaboration. Swarming is a simple way to boost the speed and velocity of the scrum team.

Although you may still work with the Agile Manifesto and ITIL in mind, you primarily prefer this method of problem-solving. 

If you answered with Mostly 4’s: Combination 

If you answered with mostly 4’s, you fall somewhere in the middle. You march to the beat of your own drum. You see the value in ITIL, Agile, and scrum/swarming, but you also are willing to compromise on which method should be used on a case-by-case basis for incident-resolution.  

If you fall into this category, it is likely that you also see value in enabling customers to resolve their own Level-1 tickets via self-service technology and shift-left initiatives. New technology at the service desk is embraced by all of the above service desk analyst styles, and you know that in order to strike the best balance it takes a mixture of methodologies and technologies to work synergistically.

Put Service Management to Work for Your Service Desk Team

If you’re looking for a service management solution to unite every service desk analyst style, request a demo of EasyVista Service Manager today.