From Incident Reports to Improvement Recommendations: Analyzing IT Help Desk Data

Most help desk operations keep records on incidents and how they are resolved. Rarely are these analyzed with respect to recommendations for improvements. At the same time, improvements have the potential to decrease costs of helpdesk operations and increase effectiveness. We analyzed incident reports of two products (one incident prone, the other not incident prone) used at a major, multinational corporation at which one of the authors works. We were able to derive several recommendations for improvements of help desk operations.