SDI: Service Desk Manager

Best Practice Training, a Global Strategic Partner of Axelos and accredited by APMG, are an independent, quality driven, provider of project management and IT service management training courses. We have successfully delivered training courses to both the public and private sectors throughout the UK and internationally.

We pride ourselves on delivering training courses of the highest quality.(look us up on Trust Pilot) We use interactive training materials to ensure a hands-on approach for all delegates.

Our team of expert trainers are not only accredited to teach our courses but have years of real world project management and service management experience. This means they can bring the theory to life by using real life examples of problems and how techniques are implemented.

Being an effective service desk manager requires a broad range of talents, from people-oriented abilities and an awareness of logistics to financial acumen and presentation skills. This course provides a thorough understanding of service desk management and leads to a globally recognised qualification.

This interactive four-day course, that from the beginning involves students via discussions, debates, exercises and presentations, leads to the Service Desk and Support Manager qualification. It reviews the student's understanding of the service desk and support environment and its pivotal role within the organisation, while promoting a greater understanding of the current market place and the responsibilities of a service desk manager.

The Service Desk Institute's (SDI's) certifications are for service desk professionals seeking professional development and recognition of their skills. The certifications are based on the SDI Professional Standards, reviewed and updated every three years by a committee of industry experts, service management professionals and practitioners to reflect the latest industry developments and best practices.

The SDI certifications provide candidates with a structured IT service and support career path and progression route.

Course Topics:

Defining Strategic Requirements

• Review the role and responsibilities of the service desk from a global perspective
• Examine the requirements for creating a plan to develop the strategic role of your team that underpins the organisation's business goals
• Identify key sources of knowledge and best practice

Developing a Strategic Role

• Review the underlying service ethics that support the strategic goals of the organisation
• Examine how the service desk can actively demonstrate its commitment to the organisation's social responsibility policy

Essential Management Skills

• Review the skills and responsibilities of an effective service desk manager
• Investigate integrating IT services with the objectives of the organisation
• Examine the activities for developing strategies business success
• Examine the basics of financial management and how to commercially manage a service desk
• Discuss the purpose and benefits of effective organisational change
• Examine the most effective way to manage projects
• Investigate the importance of having good communication skills from a management perspective
• Review the importance of having excellent listening, negotiating and questioning skills

Promoting the Service Desk

• Discuss the objectives of promoting the service desk
• Review the key activities of a successful promotion programme
• Investigate some of the options and channels that can be used to promote the service desk
• Examine how to manage stakeholder expectation

IT Service Management

• Review the objectives of ITSM
• Examine service desk responsibilities in key ITIL® processes, their activities and benefits
• Incident management and request fulfilment
• Problem management
• IT change management
• Release and deployment management
• Service asset and configuration management
• Knowledge management
• Information security and access management
• IT service continuity management
• Service catalogue management
• Discover the service desk's responsibilities in the service level management process
• Identify the principal components and activities of the service level management process
• Investigate the purpose and typical content of Service level agreements (SLAs), Operational level agreements (OLAs) and Underpinning contracts (UCs)

Integrating the Service Desk

• Discuss the power and importance of effective work relationships
• Investigate the importance of formal and informal networks
• Analyse your responsibilities in contributing to IT and business objectives
• Explore the value of conducting assessments to aid continual improvement
• Learn about various sourcing options and how they can be used to meet business requirements

Quality Assurance

• Learn about the purpose and objectives of quality assurance (QA) programmes
• Identify some common QA practices
• Examine the purpose of customer feedback and various methods for obtaining it
• Discuss the importance of effective customer satisfaction surveys and survey types used
• Review methods for monitoring performance

Effective Management of Tools and Technologies

• Review the most commonly-used technologies
• Investigate the benefits of ITSM tools
• Discuss automated call distribution and computer telephony integration
• Identify commonly-used support delivery tools
• Examine the benefits of self-service and self-healing
• Investigate the effective use of social media

Recruitment, Retention and Development

• Examine requirements for effective recruitment and the key qualities and skills required for successful support staff
• Review the benefits of a structured induction and ongoing training and development programme
• Examine the behaviours required to retain staff, maintain excellent working relationships and address individual performance issues

Leadership & Management

• Review the characteristics and activities required of an effective manager
• Examine the elements of successful planning and the methods used
• Discover how to organise resources and direct, control and co-ordinate activities
• Review the characteristics of good leaders
• Examine the characteristics and benefits of effective and motivated teams and how to achieve them

Professional Development

• Review how to ensure on-going professional development for your team members
• Review how to ensure on-going personal development for yourself
• Discover the benefits of coaching and mentoring and the basics of the processes
• Examine some causes of stress in the workplace an some examples of how to manage stress effectively

• Both new and experienced service desk managers
• Team leaders
• Supervisors
• Support Manager
• Service Delivery Manager
• Customer Service Manager

Between 3 and 5 years experience of the service desk environment is ideal.