Using GTD in an IT Environment

Mike Wills

Mike Wills

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After years of reading articles and doing a few of things I learned from those blog articles, I finally read the book. I can see how it all comes together for my personal tasks and projects. I started with Trello and now transitioned to Nirvana to track everything. I am getting comfortable with that and still working on recording everything as I think of it. Where I start to waiver is when it comes to the other inboxes that I am responsible for and how it can all come together. Besides the normal email, we have a help desk system (for internal customers), a customer service system (for external customers), and our team's project management system.

These are all trusted systems themselves. My struggle is how to map all of this into GTD and where to manage those tasks. Obviously, I need to keep that task in the originating system, but I also want to make sure I know where that fits into everything else I need to do. I hope this makes sense. Based on what I read, I think these can all be treated as inboxes. What do I do with them after that? How do I categorize it? Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I am just trying to build an efficient system that I can learn and then share with the rest of team.

Any thoughts or wisdom that can help me find my way?
 
Hi Mike. When those are systems are leakproof, specific and sufficient enough as a tracking and reminder system, you don't necessarily have to track them in your own system. For example, I've coached a lot of people in IT. Most don't move next actions from something like a bug tracking system into their own tasks. However, many of them would track larger outcomes/projects in their system.
 
@kelstarrising Thank you so much for the information. That takes a bit more weight off me that I wasn't sure how to handle it. I think I am one that will bring some of my project stuff into my GTD flow and then push out tasks to the team if it's something to delegate.
 
Can I add to this? I’ve recently trained the staff of our MSP in GTD, and we’re slowly sorting out the challenges.

Some have found that they do like to pull Actions out of the ticketing system into their preferred tool (usually Outlook). In that case, they receive the email notification of a new ticket, then drag it to Tasks. They rename the task to make it a true Next Action. The email automatically includes a link back to the ticketing system, for easy access and time-keeping.

For those who want to keep their support and project next Actions within the ticketing system, we’ve added a custom field labeled “Action”. That way the ticket name can be customer-friendly (Troubleshoot PC power issue.), and the Action can show what actually needs to happen next (Check to see if it’s plugged in.). This also helps with delegation and escalation.
 
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