Garage support

Summary

The “SciComp garage” is our daily office hour, where people can come and ask us anything. Answering these questions is a quite demanding responsibility, and you need to be able to think on your feet and not get stressed when you don’t know something.

Garage is not just a time to help others, but the common time we can talk with each other, and most importantly learn from each others’ answers. When you see someone give an answer you aren’t familiar with, always take the time to ask “what did you just do?” so that you can learn more.

Main challenges/pitfalls

  • You will often be asked things you don’t know right away. (A broad solution is: ask for more info in the way you would debug. For example, start by asking to share the screen and show the exact problem).

  • You need to be able to know other people (ASC/RSE/ITS/research services/etc.), to be able to refer customers to them when appropriate.

  • A lot like the “planner” role, you need to be able to understand lots of different things and advise on the best solution trade-off for each customer individually, without the time to take a break to plan.

  • Helping people while still giving them confidence that they can and should keep trying themselves (and not over-playing your confidence).

  • “Too many cooks” problem when too many staff try to support the same person, simultaneously asking questions and giving instructions.

Expectations / checklists

  • Attend the garage whenever it’s convenient (usually we have plenty of people, so if something else comes up, do that instead). However, attend often enough to stay connected to the team.

  • Treat all customers with the highest level of respect, regardless of their background or current experience level.

  • Make sure someone greets all incoming customers.

  • For each support case, make sure that one person (and not more than one) is the primary communicator, to prevent the customer from getting overloaded.

  • Ensure that you understand the full scope of the customer’s request before diving in, especially the questions listed on Help (has it ever worked? what are you trying to accomplish? what did you do? what do you need?) (Avoid the XY problem.)

  • When someone departs garage, give them encouragement to keep trying themselves, that “yes this is hard, but you can do it”.

  • You may ask people to come back another day (or schedule another meeting) if you need more time to figure it out, or you need a different person to be present.

  • Help as best you can and ask for help from others when needed.

  • Observe other answers so you can learn new things, and ask follow-up questions once the customers leave.

  • Record visits in the garage diary, but don’t make a big deal out of gathering this information.

External materials

Training program: materials and exercises

Roleplay: run through a support request.

Roleplay: Run though a support request where you don’t know the answer

Roleplay: Run through a support request where you need to tell them you can’t help them.

Roleplay: Garage, someone has only used AI and doesn’t know what their code does

Roleplay: Discussing with another staff member about a sub-standard support session

Other

  • Psychology of support * How to help someone use a computer * Roleplay: garage help * Exercise: comment on a simulated bad support session * Roleplay: suggest to a colleague that their support could have been improved * Finding the real problem within the question

  • Usability

  • Teamwork

    • Work together but one person in charge of each support session