Nihad and Hezekia are Functional Managers and work at Devoteam – Sector Public. They are active as Functional Manager at a ZBO in a team of 11 colleagues and participate in the functional management of the “Digital Working” platform. The client has been going through a digital transformation for several years now, and it is up to Nihad and Hezekiah to support this as best as possible. Nihad from his consultancy role and experience in the field of functional management and Hezekiah in the role of coordinator and managing the functional management team. The functional management team supports and provides services to users of the applications within the organization.
The work of Nihad and Hezekiah as Functional Administrator
SharePoint is a platform from Microsoft that serves as a framework for information sharing and collaboration within a group or organization. The client’s organization is currently in transition. The current SharePoint (2013) is almost end-of-life and needs to be replaced.
An important part of Nihad and Hezekiah’s work is preparing for the transition to a new environment and preparing for upcoming changes for the business. Functional management maintains close cooperation with the business, sets requirements and knows what the user needs. Through proper preparation, functional management can guide the user to a new platform. Both also participate in Scrum sessions and regularly coordinate with the Product Owner. In addition, they perform the following activities:
- Communication to users. As Functional Managers we are responsible for communication. This concerns topics such as releases, adjustments, disruptions, etc.
- An important task of functional management is user support. This includes solving incidents (sometimes in collaboration with the management chain), support with content and design issues and assistance authorizations.
- Setting up communities, collaboration sites and process sites.
- Managing Application Management and Technical Management.
- Specify customer requirements.
- Testing (testing and testing).
In practice, Nihad and Hezekiah are responsible for the continuity and functionally correct operation of the primary applications at this government organization.
Working from home vs at the office
Working from home during this corona period requires a different way of working. Where you could walk to each other in the office, you now have to coordinate with each other. Furthermore, customer contact has changed. The “floorwalking” as before on location no longer exists. As functional management you will have to be present in a different way. For example, there are initiatives to develop community sites where colleagues can meet.
SCRUM/agile working as a Functional Administrator
SCRUM is an important method that is used by the client for collaboration and delivery of customer wishes.
Every day the team has a daily SCRUM session. During this session, the workload is discussed on the basis of the SCRUM board. The work stock consists of incidents, service requests and customer wishes. It uses a Kanban-like tool that contains ‘tickets’ that go through the process. In a sprint, an attempt is made to provide as much added value as possible by solving cards. The cards follow the pattern, to do/working on/done. The goal is to deliver as much as possible in each sprint.
SCRUM has the great advantage that the lines to the business are short and that all the necessary specialists are in one team. It is also a good method for sharing knowledge. Especially in this time of massive working from home, it is even more important to have moments like this.
Want to work as a Functional Administrator at Devoteam just like Nihad and Hezekia?
Do you have at least 5 years of experience in (central) government and are you ready to work at an informal, accessible and professional company? We operate at the intersection of ICT and Operations and help our clients with sound advice to overcome their digital challenges. Our mission “technology for people” ensures that we as an organization never lose focus on people within organizations.
