5 Things You’re Doing Wrong With ITSM

As we talk to IT service management teams looking for new ITSM tools to solve problems on the service desk and beyond, quite often the issues they face are deeper rooted than an outdated, too complex or badly implemented ITSM tool. Below are some of the top problems we often encounter.

1. Ignoring the service needs of your users

A lack of awareness of the service needs of your users means service expectations will not be met and there is a risk of users looking elsewhere for solutions than in your service catalog.

This poses a significant risk to the business as organizations become exposed to potential security breaches, data loss, and noncompliance of software licensing policy as well as creating issues of scalability and supportability for you.

2. Providing poor user experiences

Poor end user experiences lead to dis-satisfied users resulting in lower adoption rates. If you are attempting to implement self-service or a multi-channel communications strategy for your end users, that is solely focused on the benefit to your ITSM team, without creating experiences that match those end-users encounter outside of the work environment, don’t be surprised if these initiatives suffer from lack of adoption.

3. Failing to embrace process automation

If you aren’t automating at least your most basic ITSM processes and workflows you are missing more than one trick. Without automation, as a process progresses and hand-offs take place tasks are more susceptible to human error as well as operating at sub-optimal efficiency and speed.

4. Communicating the wrong metrics

ITSM operational metrics focus on the performance of the ITSM team and tools, e.g., first contact resolution or number of service requests logged in a given day. They are great for describing the current and past operational environment, but don’t show the value or impact your team has on the business.

These traditional operational based metrics are not the figures that business leaders understand or use to make strategic decisions that ultimately affect your budget and resources.

5. Lack of agility to support business change

Keeping the lights on is no longer enough. The mind-set of merely supporting and maintaining email systems and the like rather than that of the innovator who enables business strategy, adapts to changes and opportunities as they arise for the business to gain leadership, market share, and operate in a competitive environment is detrimental to the health of the ITSM team. Failure to adopt an agile operating approach removes your seat at the management table and risks the team becoming irrelevant.

If you recognize any of these problems above, congratulations, you have taken the first step on your path to improvement.