Using the IDEAL model for the construction of a deployment framework of IT Service Desks at the Brazilian Federal Institutes of Education

Abstract

Brazilian Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology (FIs) have expanded through multicampi structure, which has led to profound changes in their administrative and academic organization. As consequence of this expansion, the demand for services, systems, and information technology (IT) solutions has increased; and the support service’s provision has become much more relevant. However, a diagnosis of the quality of the IT support services, performed with the FI’s CIOs, has shown that the service’s provision in these institutions is below required. There are several problems encountered, such as political and cultural issues, lack of stakeholder involvement, insufficient staff, resistance to change, lack of priorities, excessive demands, lack of knowledge of best practices, and the use of inappropriate tools. So, there is a clear need to develop a proposal to help the FIs to improve their IT support services. The Service Desk is an alternative, since it implements a unique interface between users and the IT sector, however, with a broader role than just the technical support, as it embraces processes, people, and technologies geared to IT management. This work aimed to develop a framework, with a practical approach on “how to do,” which guides the implementation and/or the improvement of Service Desks of the Federal Institutes. The proposal sought incorporates several practices related to Service Desk, identified in ITIL, ISO 20000, CMMI-SVC, and MR-MPS-SV models, creating a deployment and/or improvement approach through a life cycle framework, based on the IDEAL model, and a process toolbox, structured according to the seven dimensions of the EPMF. The research is relevant due to the lack of guidelines for the implementation and/or improvement of Service Desks from a practical point of view, since the main models found focus on “what has to be done,” and little on “how to do.” The IT support service’s current situation diagnosis in the IFs showed that the service provisioning was less than expected. The need to develop a proposal to help the FIs to improve the IT support service became evident, and the QoS-IT framework emerged. After the framework’s development, it was evaluated by IFs specialists and, posteriorly, it was used and evaluated in the context of a specific Federal Institute. Finally, a gap analysis was done between user satisfaction surveys, comparing the results obtained before and after the Service Desk deployment at the Federal Institute, which presented evidences of a positive impact on the service provision after using the framework.