ITSM in 2023 – Start Planning Now, It’s Closer Than You Think

Your organization might have already undertaken its first budget planning round for 2023 IT operations. Whether it has or hasn’t, have you considered how best to improve your IT service management (ITSM) operations and outcomes next year? Of course, this needs to be driven by business needs, but some ITSM trends could help too. After all, businesses thrive on both business-driven and technology-driven improvement and innovation.

Have you considered how best to improve your #ITSM operations & outcomes next year yet? You should says @Joe_the_IT_Guy and here he looks at some ideas how. #servicedesk Click To Tweet

So, what are you looking to do differently, or additionally, next year (in ITSM terms)? Whether this is incremental change through continual improvement or more transformational change delivered via projects. Either way, this blog’s content is designed to both spur your thinking about new opportunities and act as a sense-check to the planning you’ve already done relative to:

• Focusing ITSM improvements in the right areas
• Measuring ITSM success in the right way (including the success of improvements)
• Leveraging new technologies to improve ITSM operations, services, experiences, and outcomes.

Each of these three areas is covered below.

This blog by @Joe_the_IT_Guy is designed to both spur your thinking about new opportunities for 2023 & act as a sense-check to the planning you’ve already done. #ITSM #ServiceDesk Click To Tweet

Improving the ITSM status quo (but maybe differently to this year)

Your IT organization might have undertaken an ITSM maturity assessment in recent years. Sadly, if it did, I have no insight into what this exercise found or the improvement activities it spawned. What I do know, though, is that the AXELOS ITSM Benchmarking Report 2022 highlighted a lot of room for improvement across all ITSM practices. The table below details this by ITSM capability.

Practice	Adoption level	Working well	Needs improving
Service desk	89%	52%	48%
Incident management	89%	49%	51%
Service request management	85%	39%	61%
Change enablement	84%	36%	64%
Problem management	80%	31%	69%
Knowledge management	79%	20%	80%
Asset management	78%	27%	73%
Relationship management	77%	23%	77%
Continual improvement	73%	27%	73%
Financial management	72%	38%	63%
Service catalog/self-service	69%	29%	71%
Supplier management	69%	29%	71%
Service design	64%	30%	70%
Service configuration management	64%	27%	73%

Source: AXELOS, ITSM Benchmarking Report 2022

These proficiency levels might reflect the relative complexity of each ITSM practice, but they could also be influenced by “behavior.” In my experience, IT organizations often look to improve what they’re comfortable with and are likely already doing well—for example, incident management or service request management. The improvements might add business value, but that value is probably far lower than if they ventured further afield with their attention.

IT orgs often look to improve what they're comfortable with & are likely already doing well, but in 2023 this needs to change says @Joe_the_IT_Guy. #servicedesk #ITSM Click To Tweet

Of course, your planned improvements might be precisely what the business needs (and employees need). But how do you know? Are you focusing your 2023 ITSM improvement investments on “what matters most” or what the IT organization thinks needs improvement? If the latter is the case, it could be that the improvements, at least from the IT organization’s perspective, add little or no business value. They might even destroy business value.

Are you focusing your 2023 #ITSM improvement investments on 'what matters most' or what the IT organization thinks needs improvement? Check out this post from @Joe_the_IT_Guy to help work it out. #servicedesk Click To Tweet

Employee experience measurement – knowing what matters most to employees

Following on from the previous section, the only way to know whether your improvements are focused on the right areas and delivering the desired increase in value is to measure your IT capabilities at the point of consumption rather than at the point of (IT service delivery and support) creation. The latter is what we’ve done in IT for the last three decades – measuring the success of our operations but likely not assessing their outcomes.

A recent Forrester Research statistic also reminded me that we’re not only likely measuring the wrong things in IT but also missing a good proportion of the organization’s “voice.” This data came from the Forrester “The State Of The Service Desk, 2022” report and stated that 62% of employees avoid the service desk, and 58% live with ongoing IT issues that the service desk can’t fix. Where does this insight appear in your IT organization’s portfolio of performance metrics? It’s a key reason why employee experience management is so important.

According to @Forrester 62% of employees avoid the #servicedesk, & 58% live with ongoing IT issues that the service desk can’t fix. What does this say about our #ITSM ops asks @Joe_the_IT_Guy? Click To Tweet

The captured experience data not only provides a view of IT operations and outcomes at the point of consumption, but it can also help you understand the effectiveness of any improvements as they happen (if a near real-time feedback loop is employed). Done right, the capture of experience data identifies where employee issues are, which of them matter most, and potentially the root causes.

Intelligent automation is the present and not just the future of ITSM

If we stop to consider why ITSM has succeeded over the last three decades, the best practices brought optimization and consistency, but these have both been enhanced by the increasing use of automation (via ITSM tools). Now artificial intelligence (AI) in ITSM tools brings further improvement opportunities across all three of quality, speed, and cost. While the employees served by IT services and support might not be interested in what they cost (to deliver), they will be positively impacted by the greater efficiency and better outcomes.

Much of the improvement comes from intelligent automation being better able to deliver the services and support employees need at speed and, importantly, in a way that meets their expectations and ways of working. It’s the same as benefitting from all technology; it’s not the technology that delivers value, it’s the use cases (and how well they’re delivered).

Here @Joe_the_IT_Guy offers up 3 areas of investment & improvement to provide a solid foundation for the #ITSM capabilities that better meet business needs in 2023. #servicedesk Click To Tweet

For example, chatbot technology alone doesn’t create additional business value. In fact, it might destroy business value if poorly implemented. It’s why we now provide the SysAid AI Service Desk for customers’ employees to receive better IT support experiences and outcomes while working in Microsoft Teams.

There are, of course, additional areas that your IT organization could focus on in 2023. But what will make the most significant impact on business operations and results? I’d be willing to bet that the above three areas of investment and improvement focus will provide a solid foundation for the ITSM capabilities that better meet business needs in 2023, deliver superior employee experiences, and provide a more cost-effective technology-enablement solution.