Is BECTA's 1:50 (IT staff:Physical Devices) Ratio still relevant?

[elsiegee40]

Background: I have been chatting with an overworked friend who is struggling to keep up with a rapidly increasing number of devices and a rapidly changing IT world.

 

With the management tools available today is 1:50 completely unrealistic?

 

Discuss!

[Steve21]

Err that seems very low ratio (or high depending how you want to phrase it) unless I'm missing what you mean :s With 500 machines that'd be 10 staff?

 

Steve

[FN-GM]

I don't think that figure has been realistic within the past 10 years at least. With that ratio we would have at around 40 IT staff! (that figure is a quick estimate off the top of my head)

 

I also wonder how they define device. Does that mean network devices? Does it include monitors, IWBS etc?

Edited August 31, 2017 by FN-GM

[elsiegee40]

It probably doesn't include many of them - BECTA has been history since 2011

 

So how do you measure how many staff are necessary? How do you demonstrate when another pair of hands is essential?

[BKGarry]

The document is from 2005 and says one tech to 150 machines or may need one to 50

 

The optimal number of ICT technicians will depend upon the type and nature of an

institution’s ICT infrastructure and management.

As a rough guide, an institution with:

• a reliable network

• efficient technical support

• ICT confident and trained users

• a staffed Service Desk

may require as few as one technician for every 150 computers.

Alternatively, an institution with:

• an older network

• or inefficient technical support

• or users lacking confidence and training

• or no Service Desk/single point of contact

may require more than 1 technician for every 50 computers. This ratio is only indicative, so

please read on for suggested next steps.

Next steps

Institutions must consider how their individual circumstances affect a Technician’s workload.

Implementing a structured approach for ICT management and support (e.g. FITS) can reduce

this workload, but aged networks, components and untrained users will continue to contribute

to a Technician’s work.

Ultimately, the question “How many Technicians do I need?” is less important than

recognising where the Technician workload is coming from and considering how to deal with the source or reduce workloads in the future

[FN-GM]

We monitor response times via the helpdesk. We can use those statistics along with the increased number of IT related devices on the inventory and there should be a trend between them.

 

However our response times have been improving despite the number of devices increasing. Switching to ChromeOS and Windows 10 has improved reliability along with newer equipment. Also better staff training, increased automation, switching lots of services to SSO and moving to services that are easier for users. However as we take on more schools this is starting to tip back the other way again.

[BKGarry]

I do read the recommendations as implying a staffed help desk is not included in the technician ratios.

[mjk]

We're working happily with 1:700* so I'd say 1:50 or even 1:150 is over-egging it a tad.

It basically comes down to the systems that you put in place.

 

* That excludes phones, networking equipment etc

[CamelMan]

It basically comes down to the systems that you put in place.

 

Plus how demanding your staff are and SLT expectations. Someplaces having a machine / system down for a day is no drama, but in many having one down for and hour is an issue due to loss of teaching potential.

 

As people have pointed out many of these stats only consider techs to PCs and laptops in the ratio. In reality with wifi points, switches, digital displays, telephones, AV equipment etc there is alot more too it. The running joke here (and in most places I'd imagine) is that if it has a battery or a plug it comes our way.

Edited September 1, 2017 by CamelMan

[jthompson]

It's more about the complexity or range of services, rather than the size of the fleet. We could put in another few computer rooms without it really affecting our day to day support workload, but add in a visitor sign-in system or a new homework platform and suddenly there's another 'thing' that you have to get to grips with and work out solutions to problems for.

 

I reckon that if we were all given the opportunity to wave a magic wand to decrease our workload, we would magic away one or two particularly annoying systems or software packages, rather then simply reduce the number of client devices.

[BKGarry]

 

One of the things we are dealing with. ;-)

[sippo]

We have approx 3000 devices, with 3.5 people. I have said it before, but it all depends on the setup. A good infrastructure is key. Get the server right, and the wireless spot on, and it will reduce many many issues.

[forkies]

I don't entirely agree with others. We have a good setup, zero infrastructure and wireless issues here but our staff are increasingly demanding and we have had 7 different projects on over summer so has left me with 80 hour weeks. I have a 1:250 ish ratio and about to go up to 1:200 ish. (Computers only)

 

Realistically if I had no projects, school expansion or demanding staff I would be happily doing 37 hour weeks and be twiddling my thumbs for some of it.

Edited September 1, 2017 by forkies

[TechMonkey]

This where I have issue with that quoted text. That seems to assume that nothing else is being done. But add in that most school IT Depts are also the help desk and planning future projects and project management and juggling other systems and in some cases data managers then that ratio is shot down. We are around the 1:150 ratio but that is under intense juggling between those many tasks and have been asking for an extra pair of hands for 2 and a half years.

I would probably agree with the 1:150 if they were pure techs, or even if they did all end user devices, but infrastructure, planning and project management would have to be dealt with by dedicated people.

[GrumbleDook]

The figure produced by Becta was prior to the work on FITS, and based on industry expectations. After FITS 1.5 was released, it was so dependent on what other services the IT staff were involved in, it was too hard to predict. The unofficial figures relied on a certain percentage of cloud services being used and this was before the growth of O365/ GAfE, of mobile devices and MDM, etc.

 

You need to start looking at research done by KPMG and PwC for expectations, and this is for non-eduction too ...

 

Perhaps BESA might look at it ... I'll ask.

[AlanD]

This is the "how long is a piece of string" question. And the answer is that it depends what you want that string to do. Typically - teachers can be quite "needy" and are happy and grateful if you are there ideally every lesson they use ICT to hold their hand. Clearly this degree of close support would be generally impossible - and affordable. You might try to argue that a school with practically zero infrastructure - no servers - externally managed wireless and say chromebooks - requires no one on site for weeks at a time....and indeed many primary school effectively work this way. So I guess, ultimately its up to the head teacher to decide - and for SLT to oversee what the IT staff (if there are any) are doing and give some guidance to how priorities are to be met.

 

And its getting those priorities sorted that prevent 80 hour weeks. Sometimes there is a rush to "lets get XXX company in to fix/sort that" to free up a technician's time - but the reality can be the technician or network manager has to be on hand practically all the time the company is on site - and in the end may on site staff may well have done done the job quicker and better.

 

Often problems stem from jobs taking longer - sometimes much longer than were originally envisaged. These are the ones I hate - and end up putting in extra hours on - because running late on these jobs often causes a crisis if the next job doesn't get started on time.

 

And then there are jobs like "documenting the system" that keep getting put back for a rainy day when there is nothing else going on...but of course that day rarely arrives and eventually you get challenged about why you haven't done these important tasks.

 

I particularly hate getting asked to do important jobs (important in the eyes of those asking) at last minute which prevent other tasks which you had promised to have finished to those who had asked in a timely manner.

[minimoo]

Having worked in the same school since first implementing AD+Windows XP - to moving to windows 10 + APPV etc, assuming that the school puts some money into Hardware i.e. you aren't dealing with the same things falling apart every 10 minutes and unable to replace.

 

I'd say the amount of 'requests' from staff has decreased - we used to get requests to install software for instance, or generate barcodes for textbooks to be issued to students. Now - it tends to be some online system being used instead. Equally, Windows itself is now pretty stable, so if you've automated updates/installs in some way, once a PC goes out, it generally doesn't need to be touched.

 

I know our support/ticket system gets a lot fewer requests from teachers than it used to - but I don't know how much of that is they come and talk directly to us, or email instead.

 

However as Alan says - there are jobs like 'documenting things' (or even replacing/upgrading things from one working system to another) which drag on and on as there's always something else to do. And some of those tasks are actually critical even if no one actually sees them.

 

We've got separate door / printing / google / microsoft systems that we try to link up with same username - ok it's automated (and ok capita do sell something similar), but at start of year there's still a number of things that catch you out or need to be generated manually - and they can basically knock out half a day of time.

[Lonix]

Background: I have been chatting with an overworked friend who is struggling to keep up with a rapidly increasing number of devices and a rapidly changing IT world.

With the management tools available today is 1:50 completely unrealistic?

Discuss!

 

Sometimes it's not the ratio of devices. A previous job had us managing more PCs above anything else. We had minimal issues with these, in fact if they were looked after we would rarely be touching them throughout the year until we image refreshed.

 

Current job has seen a decrease in BYOD etc devices and a slight increase in laptops/PCs. Our job could be spending more time in a week on 100 BYOD vs 500 PCs.

 

3 of us here and we manage over 1200 devices but again if it was all looked after and no late minute calls for installs (plus age of kit) our day would be much easier.

 

That's another factor - age of kit. If you spend a 5th of your year keeping old equipment going that takes up time.

 

So, to me the 1:50 is beyond irrelevant anymore.

 

Also got to consider how tech has improved, electricity in areas has cut down power trips... I can't tell you in my first job we would be replacing PSUs and even HDs on a daily basis Vs now where it's a few every year. Power trips here have been cut down to around 4 a year instead of 4 a month.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Lonix