Who should attend: Anyone who will supervise support staff and/or a user "help desk."

What you will learn: Support staff management skills and techniques.

From the trenches, management looks easy - until you get there. Managing a highly-skilled staff in a demanding user-support environment adds complications. How do you improve or maintain quality user service without sacrificing the staff? This tutorial provides an overview of strategies for establishing or improving your support organization and keeping your staff productive and happy to stay.

We will discuss topics such as defining user services, tracking, prioritizing, system monitoring, hiring/firing, training, tools, and docu men ta tion. In addition, we will discuss traditional staff management topics, considering the challenges specific to a support environment including communication, team roles, delegation, evaluation, and promotion.

Barb Dijker is a system and network consultant with her own company, Labyrinth Computer Services. She is also the current saver of USENIX faces, the executive director and co-founder of the Colorado Internet Cooperative Association, and principal manager of an ISP called NeTrack.

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