Building the team

The internet is down. Oh, the dreaded words from a user.

“Can you show me?”

It’s difficult to trust my client or user’s ability to diagnose computer and network problems. I have them show me the problem that they are experiencing. Sure enough, launch a browser and the web site fails to load. I try a few more things on their computer.

I begin gathering the set of possible causes. “Let me check with the team” I said as I walked out.

I spent many of my earlier years in computers performing service work for businesses. I had a technique for training others on the team to become better troubleshooters. We would get a call into the office. Someone at the office would do their best to document the problem and create a service ticket. I would pick up the service ticket, grab one of my techs and jump in the van. Once in the van, I would hand them a tablet (yes, the paper kind) and a pen. On our drive to the client, I would describe the problem and ask the tech to write a list of anything that could possibly cause the problem that the customer described. Anything. I would prompt, prod and ask questions about principles of operation that would force a mental ‘drill down’ into systems and areas of possible root cause.

Now, here we were on a 25 minute drive with 5 minutes to go and a list of 20 possible causes. “Number them from most likely at 1 to least likely based on your experience.” When we arrived at the client, we had done a bulk of the work. Now, we would simply work through the list from 1 and verify that each one of the items on the list could be removed as the cause. We were effective.

“We are already on it” is what I got from my team. “Of course you are.” I said with a smile. The result of building a competent and cohesive team means that they don’t need me. The beauty is that they want to keep me on the team with them.