Chapter 19. Support

"I love it when a plan comes together."

” "Hannibal" Smith (George Peppard) ^[1]

^[1] The A Team , Rob Holcomb, Director; Frank Lupo and Steve Cannell, Writers, 1987.

In a series of surveys conducted by our group with a number of business people who had many years of experience with IT, one important issue emerged: The support and management of products, services, and information systems is the clearest indicator of the professionalism of a project development group.

When the @$$% Hits the Fan!

If you are a reservation clerk at an airline, for example, and the reservation system crashes, how would it feel to listen to some recorded music from the help desk while customers abuse you?

After all, if you are a business person who depends on existing production systems to provide services to your external clients , the quality of product and system support is paramount: "I'm sorry that we can't process your application, the computer system is down. If you can ring later after all we pride ourselves in our customer service."