FITS OM: Using Systems Administration to allocate the FITS OM functions and activities
We have provided an Allocation table to help schools allocate the activities in each of the FITS OM functions to staff in their technical support team. This will help you to structure your resources efficiently. It is based on a team of four with a skill set ranging from a non-technical service desk administrator through technician and senior technician to the network manager - with correspondingly increasing levels of technical knowledge.
We realise that not all schools will have this many internal technical support staff, in which case you may have to combine some of the roles. For example in a school with two or three technical support staff you can consider the following options.
| Combining roles | But beware... |
|---|---|
Service desk administrator and technician |
This will increase the administrative burden on the technician and mean that they will have less time for technical work. |
Network manager and service desk administrator |
This will increase the administrative burden on the network manager and will mean that they can devote less time to strategic and planning work. |
Network manager and senior technician |
A network manager with a good technical knowledge should be able to carry out the senior technician work, but it will leave the manager less time for strategic and planning work. |
A school with only one full-time technical support staff or less is unlikely to have the capacity to carry out the activities in all of the FITS OM functions. In this case the school may want to ask an external supplier to take ownership of some or all of these. The table below gives some example approaches.
| Contracting out FITS OM activities to a supplier | Allocation of functions and activities |
|---|---|
In a school with a highly technical network manager only |
The network manager could retain ownership of all the FITS OM functions, but ask a supplier to provide assistance with some of the activities. For example the network manager could define the policies and monitor them, but allocate the activities to an on-site technician provided by a supplier for a number of hours per week. |
In a school with a less technically skilled network manager or technician only |
The school could ask a supplier to take ownership of all of the FITS OM functions, define the policies for each and carry out the more technical activities. The network manager could carry out the less technical activities such as incident management and maintenance tasks. |
In a school with no technical support staff |
The school would contract out to a supplier the ownership of all FITS OM functions and most of the activities. It would be best for someone at the school to have enough understanding of FITS OM to know that the supplier is carrying out the right activities to the agreed levels of service. Also, it would be beneficial for the supplier to have an understanding of FITS OM so that both supplier and school talk the same language. The school should carry out the service desk administrator activities, as it is important to keep a single point of contact in the school to manage the incidents and problems. |