Delegating tasks, and monitoring and measuring them is one of the main tasks of a good manager, regardless of the area in which he works. For those who work with IT support, good demand management makes all the difference in the productivity /availability ratio of the customer’s infrastructure. After all, a mistake or a missed deadline can stop an entire production chain.
In this scenario, it is important that the manager manages to direct the activities well, so that they are executed in a fluid way, that is, on time and with the promised quality. Demand management is that, the process that consists of managing all the needs of the work, encompassing actions such as delegating, organizing, and knowing how to prioritize activities.
In this post, we will present 6 of the main steps for you to manage healthy demand in your company. Check out!
1. Understand what the company’s real demands are
Demand management has to be based on the real needs of the company. So, before doing any sort of task distribution, carry out a survey of the most recurring demands and an assessment of your customer’s needs — infrastructure maturity, recurring tickets, IT-related productivity bottlenecks, etc.
This way it will be easier to choose which are the best tools and methodologies that you should use to manage the services and deliver the best support. The result of this planning is a better use of available resources, reduction of operating costs and waste, and greater efficiency of the sector’s processes.
2. Adopt a pattern
Planning and organization need to be watchwords when it comes to management. When we talk about IT support, we have the SLA as one of the bases that provide a standard for the services provided.
Regarding demand management, which is an objective process, has its own execution pattern. This is because it is through these standards that metrics and indicators, which will allow the monitoring and evaluation of the tested works, will be removed.
In this scenario, it will be possible to establish a workflow so that all areas of the company communicate and know each other’s procedures, as they will have a standard to follow.
3. Consider the SMART standard
In the previous topic, we talked about the adoption of a standard, which is essential for a good organization and mapping of demands. In this one, we will present one of the most used, the SMART standard, which serves as a basis for the step-by-step management of demands. Then check the meaning of each letter of the acronym.
Specific (specificity)
The goals created must be as specific as possible, with solid foundations, allowing professionals to follow the entire script with a focus on achieving the objectives. Avoid as much as possible creating generic demands, without clarity, as this can make the activity very diffuse and truncated.
Measurable (measurement)
In addition to creating specific goals, it is important that methodologies are created to measure results. The focus here is to give more objectivity to the evaluations, because, as we know, every activity starts with good planning and must have a final objective. The manager is responsible for evaluating the results and identifying whether they are in accordance with the planning.
Thus, if the result is very different from what was expected, with the evaluation in hand, it will be possible to identify the points of incongruence and create appropriate action plans to remedy them.
Attainable (attainability)
It is also important that the goals are attainable as this is crucial to keep the team motivated. When a manager sets a demand beyond the possibilities, whether, for resources, competence, or impractical due to the size of the team, the result is wasted time, attrition, and customer dissatisfaction.
As much as the manager intends to increase productivity and produce more with less, it is necessary to have the right tools to drive this growth and do it gradually.
Relevance (relevance)
In addition to being attainable and measurable, the demands must also be aligned with the business. As simple as an activity may seem, it will always be linked to another, that is, what is done in the micro generates results in the macro sphere. A ticket priority error, for example, can stop production.
Time-based (temporality)
Now let’s go to the conclusion of the Smart pattern, which is nothing more than the factor that guarantees the fulfillment of a task: the deadline! In IT, tasks are often linked, that is, one ends up depending on the completion of the other. Deadlines are used to ensure that there is a prioritization according to relevance, correcting errors that directly affect the customer’s productivity first, without forgetting or postponing the others.
4. Review the results
Demand management is a process of continuous improvement and, as such, requires periodic reviews of the effectiveness of the procedures adopted. The objective here is to raise the level of accuracy of the estimates, increase the productivity of the team without overloading it, and have more efficiency in the processes, among others.
It is also important that management is open to making all necessary adjustments in case of a need for improvements, even if they are a few more drastic changes. In this way, a culture of continuous improvement is created, which will generate feedback and optimization suggestions, making professionals increasingly prepared to deal with problems.
Ideally, reviews should be periodic — annually, for example — or carried out in case of identification of inefficiencies or changes in IT management assumptions — which can bring a new approach to workflows.
5. Evaluate the periods of highest and lowest-demand
Seasonality is part of the routine of many companies, so it is important to have a predictive analysis so that demand management adapts to different periods. For example, in retail companies, which have sales peaks around holidays like Christmas, it’s common to have some kind of server overload or hardware problems due to continuous use.
On the other hand, these same companies will have to deal with moments of drop in customer flow, which will also impact the IT support team, which will have a drop in the number of tickets. A good way to balance these moments is to analyze which types of calls can be redirected to these days of lower demand, giving a balance to the team’s work routine.
6. Use technology to your advantage
In order to manage demand well, it will be necessary to have the best tools. In this sense, they will streamline the process of delegating tasks, managing tickets, creating metrics, monitoring, and whatever else it takes to meet the SLA. Remote monitoring and management tools will not only improve the quality of processes but will also benefit your customers.
We hope that, after reading this post, you have a basis for good demand management. In this new moment that the IT sector is experiencing in companies, with a more strategic role, it is important to be 100% aligned with the customer’s business, and this requires organization, prioritization, and deadlines.
