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Industry & alumni

Snohomish County

Refining IT Support Delivery

Snohomish County launched a new Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) software system in December 2020. The software has integrated features, such as configurable automated work flows, urgency, escalation tiers and end user validation/ feedback surveys. After almost two years of use, Snohomish County has thousands of tickets to reference and analyze, and they are interested in further refining the configuration, and identifying common issues that 1) prompt users to reach out to IT for assistance, 2) delay Snohomish County's ability to respond as expected, and 3) create an inefficient or undesirable response. What are the investments Snohomish County should make in the product design configuration, in developing preventative efforts, or in providing end-user training that will reduce workload and align our expertise in the most effective way to meet the needs of the end user? This student team worked to spotlight patterns in system waste: configuration, end-user feedback, ticket intake and handling, ticket categories and priorities, workflows, and self-service and recommend improvements. This student team also worked to identify opportunities to proactively prevent service calls: training, resources, preventative maintenance, communication of events, etc. Finally, this student team attempted to design recommended solutions to reduce or eliminate waste and improve outcomes and assign priority to recommended improvements through measuring potential savings of time/effort, reduced wait/outage, and improved satisfaction.

Faculty Adviser

Patty Buchanan, Industrial & Systems Engineering

Andrew Davidson, Human Centered Design & Engineering

Jennifer Turns, Human Centered Design & Engineering

Students

Alex Blakely
Daniel Pokorny
Robyn Soh
Sydney Brusnighan
Tatum Lindquist