I’ll keep this post short and to the point; beware of the “Bubble Culture.”  My manager also referred to this as “The Silo’s,” but even though a silo may be a better metaphor, I like the idea of bubbles.  First, the word “bubble” is just more fun to say, and second, as difficult as it can be to change a culture I feel that identifying a change as a hardened, concrete structure can be more discouraging then thinking of simply popping a barrier and letting the contents (in this case people) wake to the shock of what’s outside.  So what is this “Bubble Culture” I’m referring about?  Quite simply, it’s the idea that the technical talent (a.k.a., just about everyone that’s not on the Service Desk), lives inside a bubble and they don’t have any interactions with anyone else; even with other roles in the department.  At my current job we’re in the middle of fighting a Bubble Culture, and these bubbles aren’t very easy to break.  It’s easy to assign an issue (Incident, Request, etc.) to someone in a bubble, but if there’s something wrong, such as information not being correct or missing, the person in the bubble would prefer to just send the issue back to the Service Desk to gather everything.  As great as it sounds to have the Service Desk be a total Single Point of Contact; it’s just not realistic where I work.  By the time the issue travels back to the Service Desk technician and the technician is actually made aware of it and eventually gets around to contacting the user, the technical analyst probably could have just contacted the user directly and had everything resolved.  Not only does busting the bubble have to do with increasing communication between analysts and users, but often incorrectly assigned tickets will travel back to the Service Desk, often to (again) be incorrectly assigned and more time being spent with getting the issue to where it needs to go.  Usually such actions can be avoided if the bubbles are just gone and a technical analyst walks over twenty feet to talk with the person they think that can actually resolve the problem and just get the ticket resolved.  So this bubble not only prevents communication but it’s depriving the entire department of efficiency, ruining the positive customer service the user would like to receive, and ultimately just wasting energy by wasting time.  So when getting ready to put improvements in place, be it ITIL, Lean, Six Sigma, etc., be ready to bust some bubbles.  The people living in them may get a shock when they’re nice and cozy little atmosphere changes, but we’re talking about changing a culture to provide better service, not just keeping everyone all nice and comfy.

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Started working in IT in 1999 as a support desk analyst as a way to help pay for food during college. Studied Electrical Engineering for two years before realizing biochemistry was more fun than differential equations, and so ultimately graduated with a Biology degree in 2006. Having (reluctantly) failed at getting accepted into dental school, embraced working in IT and has gone broke becoming an ITIL Expert. Likes to jog, sing camp songs, quote Mel Brooks movie lines and make dumb jokes and loves working for an Israeli tech company where December 25th is a regular work day.