The summary.
BUILD YOUR OWN NOTES FROM THE FIRST DAY
Institutional knowledge is largely undocumented, and the unwritten practices are what no manual contains.
For every resolved ticket, establish why it worked — otherwise you accumulate procedures without understanding.
THE SCOPE QUESTIONS RESOLVE MOST COMMON SCENARIOS BEFORE ANY TECHNICAL WORK
One user or all, one device or all, one application or all, what changed.
RESTRICTING LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE RIGHTS PREVENTS A LARGE PROPORTION OF INCIDENTS
And standardising builds makes problems predictable rather than unique.
ANNOUNCE CHANGES BEFORE THEY HAPPEN
Unannounced change generates contacts that announcement would have prevented, and volume rises predictably during any rollout.
WORK FROM THE JOINING RECORD WHEN SOMEONE LEAVES
Without it, removal is guesswork — and people forget third-party services, remote access and physical access.
TRAIN ON TASKS, NOT SOFTWARE
Feature tours are not retained. And measure whether the related support requests actually reduced.
IT WORK IS A POSITION OF TRUST
Access only what the task requires, never view material out of curiosity, and never ask a user for their password.
UNDER PRESSURE, DO NOT CHANGE SEVERAL THINGS AT ONCE
And delegate communication, so whoever is diagnosing can diagnose.
