Why mobile support fails
For a long time I am trying to get my head around the fact why IT departments find it difficult to properly support mobile devices.
Somehow we forget about all the lessons learned from the past. We do not have any policies in place when to deploy new releases. We have no clear perspective on lifecycle management, etc.
In a short workshop on a seminar we asked several IT managers and Service Desk Managers the question why they thought it was difficult to support those devices.
These are the 4 major reasons:
1. No clear defined borders between private and business use of mobile devices
2. Lack of adequate mobile device management tooling
3. User does not want to be hampered in the use of his device
4. No clear policy on use
As you probably know we are fan of new an innovative ways of solving problems. So what if we would use on of these? In this case we use reframing.
In this technique we will find the main arguments which support our main though i.e. the four reasons we have formulated before.
Then we will rephrase these arguments and find the opposite of them. After we have reprased the four arguments, then we can find the main statements which goes with the four arguments.
In this case the opposite of the for reasons would become something like this:
1. There is a clear border between private and business use
2. Abundance of mobile device management
3. There is no need to hamper the user in his/her use
4. Clear policies.
So according to this short survey we performed in a workshop, one of the first steps to set on the road of effective mobile devices management, would be to create clear policies which clarify the boundaries between private and business use. This policy should be supported and incorporated in proper mobile device management tooling.