Got an interview on Thursday for an IT blokey to travel round the Schools sorting them out when they break things.

After some bullet points for the following scenario I have to write to take to the interview:

"The head teacher at one of your schools has expressed concerns to you that several IT problems haven't been resolved.

Write 600-700 words explaining how you would approach this issue. You should include your initial actions/discussions with the school, steps you would introduce to avoid such problems in the future and any other communications to be made."

Pat ;-)

i hate questions like that.

no real right answer to it either.

Simple: If headmaster had taken advantage of Apple Education deals and bought Macs instead of PCs he wouldn't have had all those faults in the first place, any he did have would be very simply fixed as woulod at worst require a system reinstall because some kid had done something dodgy!

Caber

When you get there tell him the dog ate your homework

What you need is a quality management procedure something like ISO9001. Gives you a set of procedures that covers all key processes in a business; monitoring processes to ensure they are effective; it includes:

keeping adequate records;

checking output for defects, with appropriate corrective action where necessary;

regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness;

facilitating continual improvement

Have a look here for some good tips on quality management! Boring, but good for your interview!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9000

Hope this helps

Matt

quote:

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Originally posted by caber
Simple: If headmaster had taken advantage of Apple Education deals and bought Macs instead of PCs he wouldn't have had all those faults in the first place, any he did have would be very simply fixed as woulod at worst require a system reinstall because some kid had done something dodgy!

Caber

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Are you trying to get us to do it for you?

Just say that you originally wrote the 700 word document but then the computer crashed and you lost it

It's all about SLA's (service level agreements). you need to establish a set of SLA's with the school so they know what timeframes to expect results within. Also you need to ensure proper call management procedures are in place so that you can meet these SLAs and proper communications with the school so that everyone is aware of problems which may cause delays etc.

HTH

Avoneer.

( I support all sort of IT so id )

Brake it down into small chunks

Identify Problem - you need a list off the faults ( fault call numbers and when they were reaported and by who )

Ask the headteacher to prioritise these faults.

Talk to head office ( ensure faults have been entered onto there system ) and see if any work has been done so far to resolve ensure head office knows there are 'ISSUES' at this school and get these faults allocated to you.

Work through the faults with the Head teacher tell them your plan of atack with the faults. Planned resoloution, Time to complete, what next steps are if it doent work. eiterh verbally or in note form

discus with head teacher if faults are being 'called in ' with the correct information What PC, What fault, What operating system, multiple aplications, affecting one or more user,

For each fault ensure the headteacher is made aware of what was done to fix it and how you can stop it happening again again either verbally or in note form. / Preventative maintenace ect

OH Important EDIT TO ADD : !!!!!!!!!1

Will it / Has it affected more than 1 PC ( especially in the case of viruses you can clear the affected ( reported ) machine but the machine that is infecting the others on the network may possibly re-infect the machine as soon as you have cleaned it.

Your answers will be scrutinised to prove that you meet the esential criteria of the Job gussing that some of these are

1, Work well unsupervised
2, Self Motivation
3, Consult / aprais headteachers
4, Self Disiplined.

OH before I go be ready for the following in interview.

1, Equal opertunities question will come up via Race, Creed, Sexual oriention, disability, or all of the above


Regards

Agriv8

[Edited on 16/10/07 by Agriv8]

[Edited on 16/10/07 by Agriv8]

As said - there's no 'correct answer', although Agriv8's supplied a very good template.

What they're really looking for is some indication of the way you think through problems, how you deal with other people, and so on.

They want to see that you've got a working brain, basically!

Cheers all, especially Mr Agriv8 - just what I was looking for to get my teeth into.

Pints of me.

Pat...

Pat,

You will have U2U Just spotted Your Location

regards

Agriv8

I'd tell you Pat but I'm going for a job in West Yorkshire in a very similar capacity, so perhaps we shouldn't duplicate our answers...

Steve

It's all about the processes:

-Log and Prioritise any outstanding issues and work out realistic timeframes to fix. Tell the relevant users your expected time to fix. Keeping people in the loop generally makes them happier. If times slip tell people.
-Make sure there is a fault logging procedure put in place where issues found are actually recorded and given an id/incident number.
-Have a system for dealing and prioritising these, you can use sla's but don't have to.
-A simple matrix of impact and urgency to give a priority rating is easy to knock up, you could then add target response/fix times. Avoid sla's if you can, it is only a school (no offence anyone) not a business.
-Give the correct people escalation procedures/contacts for issues deemed not to have been fixed in a reasonable timeframe.

If you want to sound clever look up ITIL, (service desk, incident and problem management).

I work in IT incident management for a large insurance co. Drop me a line if you want any more info.

Ned.

[Edited on 16/10/07 by ned]