Who do you call for IT assistance
-
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
What? No doctor or lawyer has a complete scope - it's not practical or possible. That's why there are specialists in those fields.
Right, but law firms and hospitals do. Hence why IT people never should work alone, they need a group large enough to provide complete scope.... exactly as lawyers and doctors do.
But they frequently don't. Sure a hospital likely covers the whole scope. But private practices don't. They refer patients to others all the time.
I assume the same happens for lawyers in small offices. -
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
so in that regard for a SMB - the same can be had by using those external resources to cover those scopes.
Exactly. Which is what lone lawyers and doctors do, they have referral or partner or advisory partners for things out of their specialty. What no honest doctor will ever do is say "I don't know anything about cancer, let's call Pfizer and ask them". No, any actual doctor doing their job in any way will call.... another doctor! This is what IT needs to do. Not call a sales person, but call someone or some group with the expertise in question.
OK I see where you're going here - you're assuming anyone selling a product is incapable providing support for that product - that seems insane!
Sure the entity making the product can't and shouldn't be expected to know the in's and out's of the purchaser's network, but I think it reasonable for the vendor to be able to assist on the product specifically, and perhaps be part of the team that solves the issue.I would agree that a doc that knows nothing about cancer isn't going to call a pharma company.. but the cancer doc who does know about cancer probably should call the pharma company when using their med won't work as expected.
Beyond this, I think the approach is often different from this point. -
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
- That EVERY IT department shouldn't be tasked with having complete scope. Of COURSE they should. Imagine if we said the same thing about doctors or lawyers!!!
Unfortunately we live in the real world.
No SMB will have enough people (or money) to cover everything in the IT world, from basic desktop support, server hardware/software, security, firewalls, pentesting, cloud, azure, etc etc etc.So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
-
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
- That EVERY IT department shouldn't be tasked with having complete scope. Of COURSE they should. Imagine if we said the same thing about doctors or lawyers!!!
Unfortunately we live in the real world.
No SMB will have enough people (or money) to cover everything in the IT world, from basic desktop support, server hardware/software, security, firewalls, pentesting, cloud, azure, etc etc etc.So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
But he also said what i referenced that we Should. I several times if we need to reach out we have failed in IT.
-
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
I several times if we need to reach out we have failed in IT.
Not necessarily. If you've had to reach out for the same thing several times, then it may be time to hire for that position in house?
-
@dafyre said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
I several times if we need to reach out we have failed in IT.
Not necessarily. If you've had to reach out for the same thing several times, then it may be time to hire for that position in house?
Not for the same issue
for different kit over the years
Touch wood we haven't much for the new kit apart from after a power cut the switches didn't come up correctly. As someone else set them up they can sort it :D. But i have now worked out how the config works -
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
But he also said what i referenced that we Should. I several times if we need to reach out we have failed in IT.
They don’t contradict each other as long as that reaching out is to your continuation of the IT team… aka the MSP.
That said I don’t agree with is “must know everything or you’ve failed” approach
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
That said I don’t agree with is “must know everything or you’ve failed” approach
But why? What's the excuse for being an advisory department and not meeting due diligance capability? What value does IT add if we are uninformed and unable to provide the necessary oversight to the business? Why do we ever allow this when there is never a time when it is out of reach?
THis is like saying that the management team doesn't need to have the full capabilities necessary to run the business. Sure they might know people management, but we'll excuse them from knowing how to pay their taxes and not bringing in the resources to do so. We'd never excuse a doctor, lawyer, or CEO from this. Why would IT be different? How is IT expected to work if we allow this?
-
@dafyre said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
I several times if we need to reach out we have failed in IT.
Not necessarily. If you've had to reach out for the same thing several times, then it may be time to hire for that position in house?
Not really. I mean it's possible, but almost never is in house IT necessary or even logical until a task approaches full time. And even then, its almost impossible to justify internal IT as external can meet or beat the cost by definition, but carries other advantages. If a role is anything less than full time, then in house has no ability to compete.
The idea of in house IT is really one of emotions, not business value. Until you are building specialty skills that no outside person or team can have, internal IT logically doesn't add up. So looking for a resource you need repeatedly will never actually tell you that it should be moved in house, it only suggests where you could move in house with less impact. But there would always be impact in the general sense.
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
- That EVERY IT department shouldn't be tasked with having complete scope. Of COURSE they should. Imagine if we said the same thing about doctors or lawyers!!!
Unfortunately we live in the real world.
No SMB will have enough people (or money) to cover everything in the IT world, from basic desktop support, server hardware/software, security, firewalls, pentesting, cloud, azure, etc etc etc.So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
Exactly, there is always a way.
-
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
- That EVERY IT department shouldn't be tasked with having complete scope. Of COURSE they should. Imagine if we said the same thing about doctors or lawyers!!!
Unfortunately we live in the real world.
No SMB will have enough people (or money) to cover everything in the IT world, from basic desktop support, server hardware/software, security, firewalls, pentesting, cloud, azure, etc etc etc.So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
And in the real world, no company lacks these resources, they only choose not to use them. There is zero excuse for a company that can't have IT cover these bases, Remember, no company that isn't large enough to cover all the bases should ever even entertain the idea of internal IT, it should always be external. Going for internal (and refusing hybrid on top of that) is an intentional avoidance of lower costs and total coverage. In the real world, no SMB can justify the cost of internal IT... that decision is always made emotionally at the expense of the business. In the real world it's just not feasible that an internal-only team could be affordably big enough to have the necessary resources. It would either be unaffordably out of reach, or just absurdly costly for no reason.
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
OK I see where you're going here - you're assuming anyone selling a product is incapable providing support for that product - that seems insane!
Sure the entity making the product can't and shouldn't be expected to know the in's and out's of the purchaser's network, but I think it reasonable for the vendor to be able to assist on the product specifically, and perhaps be part of the team that solves the issue.Right, asking for product fixes is not having them do IT. Having them do anything meaningful can't be done. Even if they have the capabilities, they are in the enemy camp and cannot be trusted. ANd the real world bears this out every time. The advise and guidance from vendors universally puts companies at massive risk.
-
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
But he also said what i referenced that we Should. I several times if we need to reach out we have failed in IT.
Reaching out TO VENDORS. Reaching out to your IT team is what is expected.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
That said I don’t agree with is “must know everything or you’ve failed” approach
But why? What's the excuse for being an advisory department and not meeting due diligance capability? What value does IT add if we are uninformed and unable to provide the necessary oversight to the business? Why do we ever allow this when there is never a time when it is out of reach?
THis is like saying that the management team doesn't need to have the full capabilities necessary to run the business. Sure they might know people management, but we'll excuse them from knowing how to pay their taxes and not bringing in the resources to do so. We'd never excuse a doctor, lawyer, or CEO from this. Why would IT be different? How is IT expected to work if we allow this?
I guess perhaps I'm not expressing my thoughts deeply though - We've already agreed that a single doctor can't know all the doctor things - and that they are allowed to reach out to other doctors - that's all I'm saying for IT. It's impossible for an IT person, or even a team to know ALL the IT in the world to only rely on that team for every possible answer there could be - so ..... we allow the IT team to reach out to other IT personal to get assistance. And while you may disagree that the likes of Dell/VMWare, etc are IT, I include them in my IT team for support, especially when I pay those companies for just that offering.
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
I would agree that a doc that knows nothing about cancer isn't going to call a pharma company.. but the cancer doc who does know about cancer probably should call the pharma company when using their med won't work as expected.
Beyond this, I think the approach is often different from this point.The pharma might need to be alerted. But if the medicine isn't working, calling sales people who have a strong interest financially in doing real harm are absolutely not to be called by any honest doctor to get guidance or advice.
Giving big pharma a chance to threaten, cover up, or kill off a risky patient instead of trying to cure them is absolutely reckless and unethical.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
- That EVERY IT department shouldn't be tasked with having complete scope. Of COURSE they should. Imagine if we said the same thing about doctors or lawyers!!!
Unfortunately we live in the real world.
No SMB will have enough people (or money) to cover everything in the IT world, from basic desktop support, server hardware/software, security, firewalls, pentesting, cloud, azure, etc etc etc.So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
Exactly, there is always a way.
And I have yet to work with an MSP that they themselves haven't had to occasionally reach outside of their own borders to get a solution to a problem.
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
That said I don’t agree with is “must know everything or you’ve failed” approach
But why? What's the excuse for being an advisory department and not meeting due diligance capability? What value does IT add if we are uninformed and unable to provide the necessary oversight to the business? Why do we ever allow this when there is never a time when it is out of reach?
THis is like saying that the management team doesn't need to have the full capabilities necessary to run the business. Sure they might know people management, but we'll excuse them from knowing how to pay their taxes and not bringing in the resources to do so. We'd never excuse a doctor, lawyer, or CEO from this. Why would IT be different? How is IT expected to work if we allow this?
I guess perhaps I'm not expressing my thoughts deeply though - We've already agreed that a single doctor can't know all the doctor things - and that they are allowed to reach out to other doctors - that's all I'm saying for IT. It's impossible for an IT person, or even a team to know ALL the IT in the world to only rely on that team for every possible answer there could be - so ..... we allow the IT team to reach out to other IT personal to get assistance. And while you may disagree that the likes of Dell/VMWare, etc are IT, I include them in my IT team for support, especially when I pay those companies for just that offering.
I thin kthe problem is you are thinking of doctors and IT as individuals, not departments or teams. The doctors is reaching out ot his medical TEAM. IT reaches out to the rest of the TEAM. Neither should ever reach out to the "enemy" vendor to do their job for them.
I 100% disagree with using the people we are tasked with defending against to be the defenders. Literally hiring the inmates to guard the jail (and run the judicial system.) They are NOT IT, no ifs, ands or buts. Their status as vendor precludes their possibility from acting as IT, you can't do both without compromising one or the other, and it isn't IT that pays the bills and since IT knows this, there's no ethical requirement for them to act as IT no matter what they say. All ethical onus of what they do to harm your business is on you because you know that they are a vendor and will never act in your interest (which is a requirement of being IT.)
-
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@hobbit666 said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
- That EVERY IT department shouldn't be tasked with having complete scope. Of COURSE they should. Imagine if we said the same thing about doctors or lawyers!!!
Unfortunately we live in the real world.
No SMB will have enough people (or money) to cover everything in the IT world, from basic desktop support, server hardware/software, security, firewalls, pentesting, cloud, azure, etc etc etc.So we need to reach out for help when needed. Yes I would say I have a broed knowledge in a wide range (part thanks to this forum) but some stuff I know we would need some external help with.
I believe Scott’s argument to that would be:
Of course not, not in house. They would hire it out through an MSP. This allows for the sharing of the MSP’s resources across multiple companies while getting all the advantages.Scott’s said this before.
Exactly, there is always a way.
And I have yet to work with an MSP that they themselves haven't had to occasionally reach outside of their own borders to get a solution to a problem.
Yes you have. Unless you don't mean IT borders. No real MSP is going to vendors, that's something VARs do regularly, because they rarely have skills in house, there is no need as they aren't IT.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
@dashrender said in Who do you call for IT assistance:
OK I see where you're going here - you're assuming anyone selling a product is incapable providing support for that product - that seems insane!
Sure the entity making the product can't and shouldn't be expected to know the in's and out's of the purchaser's network, but I think it reasonable for the vendor to be able to assist on the product specifically, and perhaps be part of the team that solves the issue.Right, asking for product fixes is not having them do IT. Having them do anything meaningful can't be done. Even if they have the capabilities, they are in the enemy camp and cannot be trusted. ANd the real world bears this out every time. The advise and guidance from vendors universally puts companies at massive risk.
you don't consider product fixes meaningful? That's the only reason you call them! perhaps not a "fix" exactly - but figuring out why you can't get their product to dance as you expect.... that's part of their job too, at least in my mind...
Yeah it comes down to most of us here include their help in this way - providing fixes to their software/their solutions - IS part of the IT solution.
