Data teams: kill your service desk

I have spoken with many data people about their most hated tool: the “service desk” used to manage the requests of others.

One team has a Slack channel called “data-sucks.” The name tells you much about people’s feelings. Others use Google forms, JIRA Service Desk, or some horrifying combination.

Teams debate the ways that they can prevent, or reduce, these requests in the first place. Should we make requests more difficult? Are we stuck in the service trap? Should we enable self-service analytics?

Initiatives are undertaken, and afterwards is a terrible truth: the questions and our loathing remain. And the others? They still hate making the requests, too.

Why do we all feel this way, and why are we still unable to do anything about it?