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This part is for Aigna staff
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Go to your installationKeia Method· Level 1 · the short version
The Keia Method
Five ideas for running workplace technology, built on one shared record of every space.
The Keia Method is a way of working for the teams who look after an organisation's meeting rooms, screens, networks and home-office kit. Most of that work is pieced together from vendor consoles, forms and memory, so faults are found by the people trying to use a room, and what was learnt leaves with whoever learnt it. The method is five habits built around one shared record of every space and what is in it. A team can keep that record in a spreadsheet. Keia Atlas is open-source software that keeps it for you and connects to the service desk and monitoring tools you already run.
Level 1 takes ten minutes. Level 2 takes an afternoon. Level 3 is for looking things up, and How it fits maps the method to ITIL, ISO, PMI and the other frameworks IT people already know. There is no exam; people get good by using it.
One morning, before and after
Before
At 08:40 a manager walks into meeting room 3.09 to set up a 9:00 client call. The screen stays blank. She fills in the service desk form: the building, the room, the asset number on the device, a description. The desk passes it to the AV team, who ask her for a photo. The AV technician suspects the network; the network team asks which switch port the room uses, and nobody knows. The call starts 25 minutes late, on a laptop. Three weeks later it happens again, and the technician who found the fix is on leave.
After
The same room, the same fault, and a team that works the Keia way. This team uses Keia Atlas, so some steps happen by themselves; with a spreadsheet, the same steps are done by hand.
The video bar in 3.09 goes offline, and the team's monitoring tool raises an alert. The record already lists what is in the room, what each device plugs into, and the 9:00 booking.
A job opens with those facts filled in, and the last change beside them: the switch on that floor was updated on Tuesday. Nobody is asked for a room number or an asset tag. With a spreadsheet, the desk copies the same facts from the room's row.
Liam, the technician on site, starts his day. His list opens with one line: one room at risk before 9:00, everything else fine.
Liam finds that Tuesday's update turned the room's network port off. He cannot change the switch, so he hands the job to the network team with everything he found. The job now reads "With Network team: needs the port for 3.09 turned back on."
The network team turns the port on. Liam checks the room and closes the job with one sentence: what fixed it. The sentence is kept in the record, against the video bar.
The call starts on time. The next time that fault appears, whoever opens the job sees what fixed it before.
The five ideas
The steps from 07:52 to 08:31 are the five ideas, one step each, in order. Each idea is a habit a team can keep with no special software; the last line of each says how Keia Atlas helps.
- Instead of
- piecing together what is in a room from memory and vendor consoles.
- You
- keep one record of every space, the devices in it and what they connect to, and attach every job to a space or a device.
- You'll know it's working when
- anyone can say what is in a room, and what has happened to it, without asking.
In Keia Atlas: each office is a floor plan; select a room, then a device, then its port.
Start from the building, in full →- Idea 2 · 07:53 in the story
Capture, don't ask
- Instead of
- forms that ask people what you already know.
- You
- fill in each new job from your records (room, device, last change) and ask people only what only they know.
- You'll know it's working when
- a report needs no follow-up question, and closing a job takes one sentence: what fixed it.
In Keia Atlas: an alert opens a job already filled in; a QR code on the table reports a fault in one tap.
Capture, don't ask, in full → - Idea 3 · 08:05 in the story
Answer first
- Instead of
- long reports, and alerts that nobody acts on.
- You
- open every report and every morning with one line: is everything all right, and if not, what needs someone first. Detail comes after.
- You'll know it's working when
- people can act on the first line, and every alert leads to an action.
In Keia Atlas: every page opens with one line that says whether all is well; each count under it opens the list it counts.
Answer first, in full → - Idea 4 · 08:15 in the story
Own it, hand it on
- Instead of
- passing a job up a chain where each team starts again.
- You
- give every job one named owner until whoever it affects can work again. If someone else must act, hand it over whole: what is known, what was tried, why it is theirs.
- You'll know it's working when
- nobody asks "who has this?", and nobody is asked the same question twice.
In Keia Atlas: each job says who has it and why, with its whole history attached.
Own it, hand it on, in full → - Idea 5 · 08:31 in the story
Learn as you go
- Instead of
- courses apart from the work, and fixes that live in one person's head.
- You
- keep each setup guide beside its device, and write down what fixed a fault where the next person will look.
- You'll know it's working when
- a repeat fault is fixed from last time's note, and a new starter sets up a room right first time.
In Keia Atlas: the setup guide opens beside the device, and a job shows what fixed it the last two times.
Learn as you go, in full →
Start in 30 days
Four weeks, one or two habits at a time. The order is a suggestion, and no software is needed to begin.
- Week 1record your rooms
List each space and what is in it: every device, its model and what it connects to. Start with one floor. A spreadsheet is enough. From now on, note each change against the device it touches.
- Week 2name an owner
Give every open job one named owner and a line saying who has it now and why. When you pass a job on, pass all of it. Whoever changes something updates the list as part of the job, never as a separate chore.
- Week 3stop asking
Before you contact the person who reported a fault, fill in the room, the device and the last change from your list. Close every job with one sentence: what fixed it.
- Week 4answer first
Open the team's day with one line: is everything all right, and what needs someone first. List the alerts nobody acted on this month and ask whether each is needed. Put each setup guide beside its device.
- Day 30look back
Over the last two weeks, how many reports needed a follow-up question, and how many fixes did someone reuse? Keep what helped. If the spreadsheet gets hard to keep current, Keia Atlas can import it.
The words
The method keeps the names IT teams already use, and adds a few plain words of its own.
ITIL words we keep
ITIL is the most widely used guide to running IT services. These are its names, with their usual meaning.
- Incident
- something is broken.
- Request
- someone wants something that is not broken.
- Problem
- the cause behind incidents that keep coming back.
- Change
- a planned alteration to something in use.
- Service
- something IT provides, such as video meetings, with an owner and a target for how well it works.
Keia's own words
Plain words for things ITIL names differently, or not at all.
- The record
- the one shared list of every space, what is in it, and every job on it. It stays current because each job updates it.
- Job
- any piece of work on the record: an incident, a request, a change or a task.
- Space
- any place where technology lives, such as a meeting room, a comms room or a home office.
- Setup guide
- the settings for one kind of device, in the order you apply them.
- With
- who holds a job now, and why, as in "With Network team: needs a port turned on".
- Hand to
- pass a job, with everything known about it, to a colleague, a team or a vendor. It replaces "escalate", because the job moves sideways to whoever can act, not up a ladder.
Every word on screen, mapped to ITIL, PMI and ISO: the words, in full. How the method sits beside ITIL, ISO, PMI and the rest: how it fits.
Copyright Red Hat, Inc. Created by Keith Brady. The Keia Method text is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Keia Atlas, the software that runs it, is Apache 2.0.
Try it in the demo
Opens as Liam, the Dublin technician. Everyone in the demo is made up; nothing you do leaves this browser.
- Open Home as Liam, the technician in the story: his page opens with one line, then four figures.
- Select a figure: it opens the list it counts.
- Press ? and point at anything: the help explains the screen you are on.