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How to Avoid 7 Common Mistakes When Implementing ITSM

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OVERVIEWJust about every company utilizes Information Technology Service

Management (ITSM) in some form or fashion. When done well, ITSM

matures as the business matures and (like fine wine) things become better

as they mature.

So, what is ITSM? ITSM is a mixture of people, process, and technology to

provide IT to a business. In some cases, ITSM can be a business in itself. In

most cases, ITSM is applied internally to enhance the value of Information

Technology to the business in which it supports. When it comes time to

implement IT Service Management, to maximize the value that Information

Technology provides to a company, it is important to take the time to

understand it and use that knowledge to avoid making mistakes that could

impact the value of IT in the company now, or in the future.

Here we will discuss seven common mistakes that can hinder mature

growth in an IT organization and limit the value that IT provides the

business not only in the short term, but in the long term as well. These

mistakes can also be identified and avoided by learning more about

the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework. The

recommendations made here are based on that framework.

Read on to learn how to avoid these 7 common mistakes:

1. Be About Your Business

2. Know Thyself

3. Take the Long View

4. Don’t Drink from the Firehose

5. Don’t Work in a Vacuum

6. Get the Facts

7. Don’t Dream it’s Over

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Almost every company needs IT within the organizational structure. Computers are everywhere and along with the internet they are valuable tools to help a company grow and prosper.

While there are some situations where the internal IT department has the capability to generate revenue for the business, most IT organizations do not. Their job is to take the company’s investment in technology and provide value for it. Unfortunately, sometimes the IT Department’s place in the organization gets misunderstood and may be undervalued or overvalued by the IT Leadership. When implementing ITSM, there is a danger of establishing processes and implementing technology that are designed more for the benefit of the IT organization itself, rather than the company it supports.

To avoid this, it is best to continually involve the business units in the planning and design phase of ITSM implementation. Depending on the size of your organization, it may be helpful to appoint someone in IT to serve in the role of Business Relationship Manager, which is a component of ITIL. Not all organizations are large enough for this to be a formal position and most often the IT Manager fills this role. The key is to ensure that the interests of the business are represented when making decisions about ITSM and that these decisions are geared towards providing value for the business more than the benefit or convenience of the IT Department.

Be About Your Business1

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To establish an effective and efficient ITSM system, you first need to determine what it is that you do for your

organization and what value it provides. Companies are different and there is no hard and fast playbook for IT

Operations. ITIL itself is a framework specifically designed to be adaptable to organizational needs. Don’t try to put

your ITSM together with a recipe book you got from Amazon.

When sitting down to plan and design your IT Service Management processes, start by taking stock of what you

are currently providing the business. Sometimes services that your department provides do not necessarily fit

the mold of common IT services but are just as (if not more) valuable to the business. Conversely, you may be

providing services that are typical to IT organizations everywhere but in truth, are not really providing the value for

your company for the investment they are spending. Its always best to start with what you have, then look at what

you need and try to avoid thinking about what you want. Take a report of the requests you have received from

the business (usually in the form of work items or “tickets” in your ITSM tool) over the last few months or so and

categorize them based on ITIL terms such as Incidents, Service Requests, etc. Use this data to help you mark your

boundaries as a service provider so you can structure your service offerings appropriately. We always begin the war

with the army we have, not the one we want.

Know Thyself2

A very common mistake when implementing an ITSM ticketing system is designing it exclusively to be used by

IT without first determining if it could be extended to other business units that also support the company. If that

occurs, you will structure your work item attributes and lists using IT terminology only. Then you get directed to

include other departments in your system for cost effectiveness (and inter-department efficiency), and a big project

must be established (and funded) to restructure your system to accommodate other departments which will have

an impact on your productivity.

The best way to avoid all this hassle is to determine in advance if there is even a possibility of sharing your ITSM

system with other departments. If so, you then plan your buildout accordingly so that the IT attributes (support

groups, classifications, impact/urgency/priority matrices) can be easily segmented as other departments are

added into the system. Expanding Service Management beyond IT is often found to have more of a positive

impact on IT than negative as it increases efficiency between support department escalations and provides more

stakeholders to share the burden (and budget) for ITSM systems.

Take the Long View3

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When planning out the ITSM system there is an overwhelming temptation to factor in everything but the kitchen

sink for go-live. This is especially true when it comes to automation of processes. Automation allows for more

efficient use of resources which allows you to do more with less which makes it extremely attractive. Also, many

ITSM solutions provide web-based, self-service functionality to publish your Service Catalog. This tends to make

IT leaders want to be able to publish services they haven’t even introduced to the businesses yet at go-live which

haven’t been fully developed and aren’t ready for prime time. Trying to cram all of this into your ITSM at go-live is

unnecessary and can get an ITSM project mired down in minutiae.

Remember this: The business units won’t miss what they’ve never had. Begin your production ITSM with what you

are already providing especially when it comes to publishing your Service Catalog in a self-service portal. As you

develop new processes and services, you can publish them in production after the period of User Acceptance

Testing where you have determined that the process or service is a) sound and b) provides value to the business.

As for automation, that can be added to services in the background and will be transparent to the end users

except that they may notice that those services are provided more expediently. And please don’t try to automate

everything. It doesn’t make any sense to automate a process that already takes very little time or effort or isn’t

required to be performed very often. Keep ROI in mind for automation as you do everything else.

The Service Catalog is literally the documented services that you provide to the business units. This includes

direct support such as incident and problem resolution and service fulfillment such as hardware and software

deployment. It can also include complimentary services that facilitate direct support or service fulfillment such

as infrastructure network and server support. It is always best practice to define your Service Catalog prior to

implementing ITSM knowing that this is an organic process that will change and grow over time.

A common mistake when structuring the Service Catalog is looking at it exclusively using an IT lens. Again, a

common theme in this story is to avoid thinking only of IT as you prepare for ITSM. Always take the time to evaluate

the services that you plan to include with the business units and get their feedback on the value of the service.

If the service does not provide enough value to justify the cost, it probably shouldn’t be included in the Service

Catalog. It is always better to work in partnership with your organization, not in competition (because odds are you

will lose).

Don’t Drink from the Firehose

Don’t Work in a Vacuum

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Classification or Category

An identifiable description to which the work item pertains such as Hardware Issue or Application Deployment

Urgency

How quickly the issue needs to be resolved or service needs to be fulfilled to minimize negative impact on the business. Typically uses the same descriptive strings as Impact.

Source

How the work item entered the ITSM system such as Self-Service Portal, Phone Call, or Email

Priority

In incidents & Problems, this is usually determined by a matrix of assigning a numeric value to Impact and Urgency and using the combinations to determine the numeric value of Priority (High impact (1) + high Urgency (1) = high Priority (1)). In Service Requests, it typically uses the same descriptive strings as Impact & Urgency and is not necessarily defined using a matrix.

Impact

How badly the incident is affecting business productivity, usually a descriptive string value such as Low, Medium, and High

One of the key components in setting up your ITSM solution is

identifying the attributes that will be used in recording service work

items (or tickets). The most common attributes are as follows:

Get the Facts

Do not be cavalier in designing these values. These are the attributes that you will data mine to provide trend analysis for your ITSM. Trend analysis allows you to be more targeted with your resources and helps provide supporting justification when you need budget. Make sure these attributes are descriptive enough but not overly so and train your IT staff to take them seriously. It is also important to pay attention to the relationships between the Work Items and Configuration Items (either directly affected or somehow meaningfully related). Configuration Items are people, groups, applications, computers and other assets. You need to be able to show who is receiving your services and what items are being serviced. Finance Managers want to see reports. These attributes will tell them where your resources are going and will allow you to determine if you need to reallocate what you already have, or you need an increase in resources.

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Once you have planned, designed, tested, and obtained business

acceptance of your ITSM processes and have gone into Production with

your ITSM tracking solution, avoid the urge to let sleeping dogs lie. Always

be evaluating your services and the value they bring to the business units

on a continual basis. If a service is shown to no longer provide value,

prepare a plan to retire it. Don’t allow it to drain any resources that can

be better utilized elsewhere. Unless you, as an IT department, generate

revenue for the company, ROI is your lifeline.

At the same time, it’s more than okay to pursue and evaluate new

technology and processes provided the juice is worth the squeeze. Be

mindful of whose money you are spending because the folks at the top

are most likely paying attention. Being proactive in quality control of your

services demonstrates to top levels that you are taking stewardship of their

IT investment seriously and may increase levels of trust come budget time.

7 DON’T DREAMIT’S OVER

Team Cireson is comprised of ITIL-certified industry experts with deep product and industry knowledge. We can

help empower you to #domore with your existing Microsoft Service Manager or other Help Desk investment.

Contact us at team@cireson.com or www.cireson.com today to learn more.

Let Cireson Help You Implement or Mature Your ITSM Program

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As good IT business practices become habit

and the IT organization’s value to the company

becomes evident, trust can be built at the

Management level which makes obtaining and

retaining quality resources and technology

easier in the long run.

Avoiding these mistakes will help facilitate

maturity and growth throughout the ITSM

lifecycle. It will also cut down on the necessity

for productivity-impacting projects to correct

the course of ITSM out of rough waters that

could have been avoided with careful thought,

planning, and cooperation.

Throughout the content of this article, you probably noticed a

common thread about keeping the relationship between IT and

the business in the forefront when implementing your IT Service

Management strategy.

Conclusion