Challenges and Tips with Communications in IT AMS Projects

In an Information Technology Application Management Service (IT AMS) project, the project team provides the day-to-day, typically “24 x 7” application support services to business users to fix any problems encountered with the specific IT system(s). The project team can be from another department (typically the IT department) of the same company at which the business users are employed, or it can be from a third-party vendor, which is increasingly the case as it has become more popular in today’s business environment for companies to outsource their IT services to an independent service provider. The business users, normally from other departments (e.g., financial, human resources, logistics, QA, engineering, etc.), depend greatly on specific IT systems to fulfill their business duties. When they encounter problems with these IT systems, they will contact the project team for technical support to fix the problem, and the project team needs to respond quickly to minimize the impact of the problem on business activities. The resolution of problems is achieved by a series of communications with customers who may have a variety of different roles.

Communication Challenges

In an IT AMS project, the majority of the time spent on the project is devoted to communication. The communication starts at the point at which the customer’s service …