We Need Improvement

The more I talk to people during and after an ITSM tool implementation, the more I fervently believe we – as an industry – are missing something.

Let me first say this is not directed at individuals or companies but the general practices of how things are done.

Companies not doing Service Management well buy a tool so they can improve. Great first step.

The tool implementer’s focus is on the tool, data, groups, workflows, etc. This is all an improvement for the company.

But, it never addresses why the company is struggling with Service Management. Here are some specific things I have seen recently:

– no understanding or push for Standard Changes
– poor Emergency Change process
– poor Major Incident process
– Incidents misprioritized
– poor response time on Service Requests
– poor Self-Service Catalog
– poor CMDB governance
– poor CAB attendance and standardized decisions
– poor management of IT hardware
– poor Service Management governance
– the list goes on.

We must do better.

What happens next is that the company thinks the issue is the tool. They ponder getting a new tool.