This is part 3 of 3 in the series, “User Initiated Technology: Why Warby Parker Built a Culture of Self-Service” based on a talk I gave during the 2018 MacAdmins Conference at Penn State University. You can find part one here.

Future of Self-service

I wanted to take a moment to share my self-service wish list. These are solutions that I haven’t quite gotten to implementing myself, but would love to in the future!

AWS IoT Button

These tiny gadgets are capable than a lot more than reordering laundry detergent. With the push of a button, you can execute an AWS Lambda. Lambda’s are scripts that are executed from AWS without the need to build your own infrastructure. You can combine these Lambda’s with existing APIs and produce some pretty interesting results. Here’s a few ideas:

• Accessory replenishment – Tired of constantly ordering new hardware for your self-service shelf? Leave out an AWS IoT button in front of each accessory and instruct your users to push the button when the stock is low. Have a Lambda send an email to your VAR to place another order.
• Service-required reporting – Audio quality poor in a conference room? Place a button there so users can report an issue and have a ticket created so you can check it out later.
• Notifications– Ordered a pizza for the team? Give an AWS IoT Button to the reception desk to press when the pizza arrives, have the team immediately assemble. 🍕

Loaner Technology Vending

We’re really interested in providing the best loaner experience. Mature vending machines offer the following advantages:

• Audit trail of who’s using the loaners
• Automated reminders to return equipment
• Lock-in storage that ensure devices are always charging

Bots

This year, we’re hoping to reduce our incoming tickets by implementing a support bot.

These bots increase use of our knowledge base by means of adding the knowledge base search to the ticket submission flow. It helps filter requests from users who rarely check the knowledge base before submitting. We’ve seen quite a few options out there, many integrating with our chat platform. Are you using one currently? I’d love to hear your feedback!

 

 

Driving Adoption

Without adoption of your self-service program, it is tragically bound for failure. Besides building the solutions themselves, you’ll need to build a culture around them.

There are three tenants that can help you produce a functional and widely-used self-service program.

1) Design With Empathy

You have as much stake in your products as your users do. Work to create a friction-less user experience.

Designing with empathy is one of Warby Parker’s core values. To our self-service program, it equated to two things:

Create experiences that are empowering

Make your systems exciting to use. Wow your users so that they feel more productive than they would had you just done something for them. Make them want to help themselves.

Create experiences that are simple

Users tend to gravitate towards whichever solution will bring them to resolution the fastest. If using a web portal is faster than engaging with IT, your users will do that. They are always going to follow the path of least resistance.

So when designing your systems, put yourself in your user’s shoes. Don’t be afraid to engage them while you’re building and garner feedback. This will hep prevent you from getting tunnel visioned.

2) Educate

Help your users adapt to the new model. Build a relationship with your users that focuses on them as the driver. My time teaching computers taught me that self-discovery is often one of the most effective learning methods.

Hold trainings

Use these trainings to help your user adapt to the new methods, because they may not be accustomed to it. Try numerous teaching styles and make the trainings regular. These will slowly chip away at the friction that could prevent success.

Keep up a knowledge base

Make sure it stays relevant and up-to-date. Ensure that your articles are properly named & indexed for easy searching. Engage your users in the documentation process so that the diction is accurate for your target audience. There’s nothing worse than documentation that’s too technical for non-engineers to properly understand. But at the same time, don’t neglect to let this explain how a system works. You may have to use less specific terms, but your users will appreciate the transparency.

Kindly redirect walk-ups

Use your walk-ups as an opportunity to showcase the systems you’ve built. Take the time to show them how to use them for the first time and refer to the documentation for further deep dives. Over time, they’ll discover that the solution is not coming from you, but from themselves. You’ll begin to see less of a reliance on your “magic touch”; and more conversations between users around what’s available to them. Although difficult, this is incredibly beneficial when helping your VIP users. You may be gravitated towards giving them a white-glove experience, but if they learn to use your self-service system; you’ll save the both of you some sleep if they ever run into an issue after hours. Your systems may be available 24/7 but you aren’t.

3) Management Support

Without support from upper management, your self-service program is bound for failure. How do you garner this integral support?

Reach them first

Sharing your goals with senior management across the organization is essential for success. Let them be the first to see the benefits of self-service. Better yet, involve them in the development process. They’ll be much more likely to push their employees towards them knowing that they had input in the design.

Show them the money!

Managers often think in term of metrics and dollars. Build these into your proposals. There’s plenty of it showing success of self-service (i.e. Mac @ IBM, Google Grab n’ Go, etc). Show them that saving engineer’s time equates to the engineers spending more time with business analysts solving business problems with technology.

Support from the very top

Once you’ve unlocked this achievement, you can guarantee all other managers to follow suit. We were lucky enough to get our co-CEO’s sign-off at Warby Parker, which gained us access to more engineering resources available from other parts of the business.

What does this mean for the Sysadmin?

Many Sysadmins are healthily skeptical of self-service. They worry that if we replace our responsibilities with these systems that we are making ourselves less valuable. While there is some truth to this, the truth only matters if our skills stagnate. Device management is changing in our field. We are seeing less of a reliance on the ‘Golden Triangle’ and Group Policy. We now have Configuration Profiles and CSPs.

So maybe these methods have been successful for many years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve our user’s experience by trying something new. Remember, our goal as Sysadmins is to manage the technology in our companies in a way that is scalable, resilient, and productive.

To prevent skill stagnation, here’s what I recommend:

Learn to code

Spend more time in the terminal and learn a scripting language like Python or PowerShell. Become the builder of these self-service systems.

Be the teacher

Spend less time in the server closet and more time on the stage. Spend your time managing people, not devices. When self-service is done well enough, you’ve convinced your users that they’re getting white-glove service.

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Throughout this series we explored how to define and implement a successful self-service IT program. I hope that our self-service program at Warby Parker inspires you to build your own. Your users can be happier– they can be empowered and have more control over their devices. They can be more productive, they can work the way that works best for them. Your engineers can be happier– they will have more time to learn new skills and be creative. They can be more productive. They can spend less time working on monotonous tasks.

Using self-service on your team in a different way? I’d love to hear about it! Drop me a line from the Contact page.

This was the final installment of the series User Initiated Technology: Why Warby Parker Built a Culture of Self-Service.