Some mistakenly believe that organizations have not succeeded in adopting IT service management (ITSM). But that’s not true.
Experian, a global information services company, has seen significant productivity gains, with time spent resolving incidents decreasing by 50%. They also have precise, centralized data and reporting to analyze performance, usage, and other vital metrics.
Zurich Airport, the largest international airport in Switzerland, has seen reductions in MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) and other critical KPIs across the airport.
However, for all the success stories regarding ITSM adoption, there are just as many stories—if not more—regarding how ITSM has come up short.
Why ITSM implementations have come up short
Companies have spent billions of dollars globally on ITSM implementations, but many organizations fail to achieve the expected success. With so much invested, why has ITSM come up short for those companies? Here are a few reasons why:
- The focus was tool implementation and some rudimentary process designs. IT organizations didn’t invest the time to understand the value and outcomes the business needed from the products and services provided by IT. Instead, IT organizations focused on implementing tools and processes primarily designed to help…the IT organization. To further the frustration, those process designs are often not revised to meet the ever-evolving needs of users.
- “Service Level Agreements” (SLAs) are not about services, nor are they agreed upon. Many ITSM implementations often cite frustrations regarding SLAs. IT produces measures and reports based on these so-called SLAs that indicate that all is well with the delivery, support, and use of IT products and services, but the user experience is entirely different. Further exasperating the situation is that no one from outside IT agreed, much less discussed, the content of SLAs.
- ITSM implementations lacked a holistic, end-to-end approach to service and product delivery. While the entire IT organization designs, delivers, and supports IT services, some organizations view ITSM as something only the service desk does.
Could it be that those organizations that haven’t experienced the success that good ITSM should deliver have ignored a critical factor? What is that critical factor?
The experience of the people interacting with technology and those ITSM tools and processes.
The importance of EX
It is well known that employee experience (EX) is a differentiating competitive factor for modern organizations. McKinsey research showed that employees with a positive experience were 16 times more engaged than employees having a negative experience with their employers. Historical data from Columbia University showed that companies with a rich culture enjoy a possible turnover rate of just 13.9% compared to a 48.4% rate in a poor company culture. Harvard Business Review research revealed that a positive employee experience directly correlates with increased revenue.
Unfortunately, many ITSM implementations either ignore or do not consider EX in their technology implementations or process designs. Closing a ticket as quickly as possible does not indicate delivering a positive user experience. This indicates that IT successfully followed its internally developed procedures using internally implemented technologies. Getting good customer satisfaction scores from surveys does not indicate positive user experiences when the return rate of those surveys is below 10%.
However, these are two fallacies under which many ITSM implementations exist.
The last mile between ITSM implementation and the end user is always the hardest. IT focuses most of its ITSM implementation efforts on installing some technologies and designing a smattering of processes to manage interactions with users of IT products and services. However, in many ITSM implementations, IT spends little time and effort ensuring the user has a positive experience when interacting with these products and services.
How can organizations close the gap between what ITSM adoption is and what ITSM adoption should be? How can organizations deliver outstanding services and support that result in positive employee experiences – for both the IT organization and those that consume products and services provided by IT?
ITXM is a difference-maker
IT Experience Management (ITXM) is not just another methodology or framework. ITXM focuses on that last and most challenging mile - connecting users to technology capabilities and driving positive user outcomes. ITXM shifts the paradigm from IT pushing services (and technology) out to consumers to approaching the consumption of services and technology from the user perspective. It also shifts the organizational mindset of the user experience from being only a concern of a service desk to a concern of the entire IT organization.
The adoption of ITXM enables organizations to capture the complete user experience, from where people are having productivity issues to what is working well. ITXM helps IT go beyond the performance measures collected as part of ITSM process execution by providing context and meaning to those numbers from the user perspective. By understanding how people feel, ITXM can provide valuable insights into improving ITSM.
Three ways that good ITXM makes ITSM better
Here are three ways that good ITXM will make ITSM better:
- ITXM provides a voice to the user. Interactions with a service desk typically go through an “IT filter” – not purposely, but IT tends to think in IT terms. ITXM helps improve ITSM by providing an unfiltered user perspective of products, services, and support.
- ITXM identifies needed improvements to ITSM. While good ITSM implementations actively practice continual improvement, ITXM provides user context into where and why ITSM interactions need to improve.
- ITXM encourages human-centric design. Good ITXM helps ITSM process owners consider the impact on and experience of the end user during interactions with service management processes. A human-first approach to process design and improvement enables a better experience with ITSM.
Good ITSM is about delivering IT products and services that meet business needs for both results and value. However, people are crucial to the success of ITSM. Understanding how people feel is a critical success factor for good EX. Introducing ITXM to ITSM implementations helps IT better understand how people feel – and positive experiences with ITSM result in better products, better services, and happier employees.
To learn more about ITXM, please read this blog on A Brief History of IT Experience Management (ITXM).
