Your company wishes to ensure that the new help desk will be able to handle requests and problems from users at any time of the day; this will play an important part in the structure of the help desk. You also have the understanding that the executive management is keen to be able to support users who are not located at the central office, and as they grow the company, the help desk should be able to support users in remote locations.

Take this opportunity to describe to management a couple of important help desk organizational structures. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of a centralized versus decentralized environment. In addition, describe these various staffing structures:

• Pool

• Dispatch

• Tiered

• Specialized

• Method

Finally, make and offer supporting material for your recommendation about how the help desk you plan to establish will be structured. Be sure to include a recommendation about being centralized or decentralized, and then explain how the staffing structure would be setup.

This first assignment will allow you to establish the Key Assignment Template that will be used throughout the class for all Individual Project submissions and to explore the framework securing an organization's data.

• Create the template to be used for the submission of all Individual Project assignments.

The template document should follow this format:

• IT Support Systems Project Document Shell

• Use Microsoft Word

• Title Page ?Course number and name

? Project name

? Student name

? Date

• Table of Contents ?Auto-generated TOC

? Separate page

? Maximum of 3 levels deep

? Be sure to update the fields of the TOC so that it is up-to-date before submitting your project.

• Section headings (create each heading on a new page with TBD as content, except for sections listed under "New Content" below). ?Roles and Responsibilities

? Tools and Technologies

? IT Systems Support

? Processes and Problem Resolution

? Performance Management

Each week, you will add to this document and submit for grading as a preview. Each section will contain the following:

• Roles and Responsibilities (Week 1 IP)? Centralized versus decentralized

? Staffing structures

? Your recommendation about the structure

• Tools and Technologies (Week 2 IP) ?The steps in solving issues

? The deliverables generated at each step in problem solving

? A discussion about what technology is needed for each step of problem solving

• IT Systems Support (Week 3 IP) ?Self-service applications

? Tools available in Web-based solutions

? Real-time and delayed assistance

? Knowledge base in the help desk environment

• Processes and Problem Resolution (Week 4 IP) ?Service level agreements

? Metrics

? Customer satisfaction

• Performance Management (Week 5 IP) ?Help desk application security

? Help desk business continuity

Add the discussion about the help desk structure and recommendations to the section titled Roles and Responsibilities.