Flowchart master
The title of this post refers to me. That’s right, I am the flowchart master.
Maybe I’ll back up a bit. I’ve mentioned that I’m developing a training program for new tech support consultants at my new job. Last week (my first week on the job), I made flowcharts. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? A number of people said that new consultants were struggling with some of the troubleshooting required by the job. It often requires following a process through several steps, and some issues can be a bit confusing. Here’s an example:
A user calls in because they have no network connection. First you have to verify that they have a working network adapter on the computer. Then (hopefully) you can check the IP address. If they get a 192.x.x.x IP, they either have a static IP set, or they’re connected to a router, or some asshat on the network hooked up his router wrong and it’s causing a rogue DHCP server. If they get a 35.15.x.x, they haven’t registered with MSU’s DHCP server yet. It can be confusing to keep track of all this, especially over the phone.
So in week one, I made a few flowcharts in M$ Visio for these types of issues. Pretty boring.
The job is starting to shape up, though. Today I made a couple sample screencasts — videos of the computer screen in action, with me narrating. I think these will be the easiest way to train new hires on some of our software. We use a handful of tools to look up user info, modem status, etc,; timesheets and work schedules are done through web apps as well. My screencasts should get the newbies up and running more quickly.
I think I’ll have a lot of latitude with this training program. It seems like I’ll be making a lot of decisions (or at least contributing), and hopefully I’ll get to actually finish this project. Sorry for the long post, but I figure my many readers deserve to know what I’m doing, right?
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