In an age of ever tightening budgets in edtech and education in general – and with the need to implement even more complicated and larger network solutions with the advent of the academy agenda – do we need to look at the structure of our IT Support teams to ensure they will be fit for purpose?

What is the best setup of your IT team in your school or trust to keep things going, and to make the maximum impact with exciting new developments, whilst securing you in the face of ever growing threats and risks – in a cost effective way?

Current situations

IT Support structures have been evolving in the past few years, as we see the growth of independent MSPs and directly employee onsite teams as schools move away from County Council managed solutions.

With the growth in MATs, we are seeing the development of centralised teams grown out of previous school specific teams as well. A wealth of skills and knowledge is available, but often not being fully able to focus on support, strategy and maintenance.

As a brief overview, the following is what I think is pretty standard at each phase:

Primary

For those not within a MAT – we can generally look that small/medium primaries will outsource their support to an MSP or a trust central team.

This support is likely to be visits, for a limited amount of time and remote support.

These visits have been something that has been cut under budget struggles in many cases. Leaving schools under resourced and behind the times.

This support therefore lacks regular strategic input, and this is a cause for primaries to often fall behind in their use of IT, and a we often see a slower benefit from any new technology.

Yet at primary, we see some of the most fantastic adoption and use of technology when implemented well.

Secondary

In larger primaries, and secondaries there is usually a network manager, and a/some technicians. Sometimes this is supplemented by support from a third party MSP or a centralised trust team.

Typically, when not in a trust, you have a network manager, and a/some technicians. These deliver both the strategic direction, escalated technical management as well as the customer facing support.

A network manager is often tasked with the strategic and escalated support, and technician with the face to face, day to day – learning their trade to move up to a network manager position.

However, in reality, the distinction between the roles is minimal – as due to staffing budget cuts – a network manager is also covering the day to day, and sometimes – is doing everything!

MAT

With MATs and central teams being created and utilised more, we are seeing a difference between the strategic and day to day, but only in the largest trusts are we seeing a clear delineation of the roles – with directors of IT or IT Leads.

Often it’s a struggle to bring together disparate systems and user bases into a single system. This hinders adoptions of technology at scale within trusts.

The need for change

The type of support that our systems need, is gradually changing. A well managed network needs several different skill sets, and as networks and usage grows – we need to adapt for that.

We cannot simply expect one, or a small group, to be able to cover the many different aspects now needed to provide the IT that schools need.

Whilst the breadth and depth of systems you support has always been something that has enticed many to the field – the needs have evolved past that technical element, into broader roles, each distinct. These were sometimes given to a member of SLT – however they are specialist areas that need the right skills.

Without those skills, IT becomes messy, poorly implemented and therefore, poorly adopted.

The difference between support, and technical management of networks

There are 4 key roles to a successful IT team, in my opinion:

1. The customer facing support and experience team – allowing individuals to work efficiently and to get the ROI and wider benefits daily from the investment in IT that has been implemented
2. The technical team, a robust, reliable and secure system that is evolving with the needs of those who use it – maintaining systems to achieve the pre-agreed requirements (whether that is existing or new developments)
3. The strategic, identifying the role technology can play within the organisation to help it meet its overall objectives, identifying opportunities and risks
4. Leadership of all these areas – that are undoubtedly linked strategically, but operationally distinct.

Confidence in technology use and usefulness is born out of confidence in the support that goes with it.

The quality of the human element of support – reassurance in a crisis – is the key between successful embedding of technology and its failure.

This can only be achieved by a support team when the system they are supporting users with meet their needs, and is reliable – to give them the confidence in front of users to be trusted.

As this support role is now more about the experience then the technical – we need to be able to have a clearly defined skill set requirement backed up by a strategy and training for the team to support, as it’s likely those in these roles will be less technical.

This can only be achieved with a system that is clear in its purpose and what it can deliver. It’s where standardisation and clear policies and strategy pay off.

Equally, front line support cannot then be expected to have the knowledge to go and find new systems and solutions to solve issues, and keep them running.

They cannot be asked to consider the multitude of configurations and integrations required to keep systems working and secure. This is the role of the technical team.

Their job is to keep what you have running, to implement and move forward change, to resolve issues that are born out of the change. But not to be the sole decider of that change. Remember, some change is within our control, some is not.

It is for a leader to converse with both of these teams, and wider stakeholders within the organisation to understand what change is needed, if any.

Who it will affect, its impact and more. This isn’t a technical role, it’s a leadership role, but that leadership is enhanced when the leader(s) know what it’s like within the technical and experience teams, and knows their organisation inside out. They are not just working in the IT Team. They are business and organisation leaders

Next

A key belief of mine is that a well managed and planned IT system within an organisation, should see requests change from “can you fix XYZ” to “how can I achieve abc”

We are seeing these change in requests happening already, with many schools crying out for more then just fixing things. But we are not always seeing the changes in the teams supporting.

By ensuring you have clearly defined roles, supporting the key areas I have outlined, you will have a team that is ready to embrace the new level and type of support that is needed.

Ultimately, with the right systems and a level of standardisation in place we should need a far more pro-active support delivery as a result of more reliable, and secure systems with less issues and failures with change that is managed and planned.

This should lead to less needs for in person support on regular visits, freeing up the ability to provide support in the right way (in person, remote etc) for the right thing (how to use technology for best impact rather then fixing something) when required.

That will then provide the confidence in users and organisations to delve further into technology, and seeing the benefits we know that are there fully bloom.