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This post is directed to users and IT professionals who have obtained that first job (well done 🙂 ) but need some guidance/advice during the first few months of entering that job.

Below are some questions you can ask or ideas you can think about to get ahead of your peers or other new starters

• Who
  • After you get introduced to your manager, ask them who the people you are working with. These questions can also include,
    • Ask who has been the longest
      • Does this person have great knowledge?
    • Ask who know’s what
      • There will be varying levels of skills and knowledge in the company you work for
        • Don’t think someone that has been at a company for 10 years knows more than someone who has been there for 2 years
          • You might be surprised 🙂
    • Ask who has specific skills in specific areas
      • Some individuals will like to code, others might be good with documentation (see if they can provide you an example of what they have written down), others might be good with communication (observe them)
    • Ask who the end client is that you are supporting
      • Are you allowed to speak to them or is there a separate team that looks after that
        • On a side note these clients will have skills, knowledge, connections to things you might be interested in later on
          • If you come across something of interest remember to document / write it down
    • Who are the escalation points
      • Something goes wrong who are the teams and individuals I need to know of
        • Who does what specifically?
        • What are their standards and expectations
          • I.e. What do you need to make sure you can help or manage the issue
• What:
  • Ask what you are supporting. This most important question
    • E.g. a full stack system, part of the system, are you just purely a level 1 Helpdesk user or you’re expected to perform extra duties
    • Make sure you get 100% on what you are supporting
  • What tools are available to monitor and maintain these systems
    • Do I need to be using this or does the L2 team use this instead
    • What tools are available if I want to see errors or success results live
      • E.g. Is there a way to see the error, say a 500 site can’t be found in a live state?
  • What are the consequences for these systems failing, succeeding etc
    • Tech teams are so caught up in their little world they forget other users require these systems to be running.
    • So ask who and what is impacted both from a failure and success stand point
      • E.g. What happens if this job doesn’t run on time, what happens if this script is ran late, what happens if the customer doesn’t get this file/report on time etc
• Where
  • Where do these systems live?
    • E.g. Cloud, on prem, hybrid?
      • If the system is in the cloud (e.g. AWS), are you familiar with the nature and interface of this system
  • Do you need to know where they live or you are just going to be supporting it
  • Is there a ticket /email system to escalate issues
    • E.g. If there is a major issue and you need to log a ticket or job, where is the ticketing system. What details are expected to be documented?
  • Where is the teams supporting me based?
    • Local, overseas, work from home etc?
• How
  • The most important part of IT support is how to support these systems
  • How do I log into these systems?
    • E.g. Single sign on, username and password, what are the links and url’s to the systems
      • I.e. Web interfaces, CMS’s, specific unique interfaces etc
  • How do I support these systems
    • E.g. Do you need me to click on this link, click on this area, click not his button, run this script, run this command etc
      • Further to add when you get the grasp of the how, you then need to know the purpose (why) and the what
        • E.g. What is the purpose of pressing this button or running this script? Does it produce some result to show me what is failing etc
    • Can you show me how to support this system
      • What do you need to see to escalate something, what is deemed something successful or a failure
        • E.g. Ok so ‘Dashboard A’ shows all the emails inbound from customers. If you see this line go below threshold ‘2’ then you need to immediately log a ticket to the L2 team to investigate the email server
        • E.g. If you see the log interface show no logs in the last 5 minutes then log a ticket through ServiceNow to the L2 team to check the log server
          • From these two examples you should get someone to show you the specifics on supporting the systems and escalating the issues
  • How are these systems related
    • Your job will be a small part of a larger picture
    • It is most likely your system will be talking / connecting to other systems which you won’t know straight away or won’t be able to see
    • Ask how the systems your supporting
      • E.g. If our side fails who will be impacted?
        • If this report fails to get delivered to this directory, how does this failure affect the person waiting/expecting this report
      • Make sure if you do get a larger picture of the stack ecosystem to document it, so you will know end to end how your side will affect others
      • (Refer to my 10% rule post)

Summary

• The purpose of this post is get you up to speed with your surroundings but also learn the people, tools, systems, functions of your workplace faster
  • Getting confirmable quicker means you will be able to learn and focus faster. Meaning you will be able to grow faster
    • If you prefer to take things at a slower pace then feel free to do so.
      • The examples above you can maybe plan and schedule specific days or different times of the day when you want to ask these questions
• This post is a light overview of what you can expect in a L1 Helpdesk / support role
  • Of course there will be more exceptions however to begin this should give you a right idea on what to expect