Top 3 IT Service Management Misconceptions

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There’s a lot of competition for service when it comes to software – especially when it comes to IT Service Management (ITSM) software. There are several vendors in the space that cater to a variety of businesses, both large and small, all claiming to be the best. With all the noise, it can be difficult to figure out which ITSM tool makes the most sense for your business or organization.

Do you need a service management tool that has just the basics? Or a tool that takes a lot of custom coding but can be highly tailored to your specific needs? Perhaps an ITSM tool that falls somewhere right in the middle, customizable enough to scale with your business as it grows, but with enough out-of-the-box features that you don’t need a team of developers or admins to run it?

From features to price, there’s a lot of conflicting advice out there and certainly no shortage of reviews and customer testimonials to sort through. Here are three common ITSM misconceptions we often see that you should keep an eye out for in your search for the right vendor for your business.

1. Your ITSM Tool Should Be Complex and Brand Name to Be Successful

Many times, businesses or organizations will take on an ITSM that’s simply too much for their IT maturity and too complex for their needs. They get sold on a big name because it’s on a magic quadrant and has all of these custom features and functionalities that are presented in the sales process that seem like a good idea at the time. But once the implementation process starts it usually becomes clear that the tool is too complex and the custom features (that likely cost additional money) either don’t make sense for the organization to use or are too complex to implement.

When this happens, businesses end up paying for licensing fees or modules they don’t need. In fact, sometimes organizations will report they have as many as 8 dedicated resources administering their ITSM tool; often consuming technical experts to create forms, workflows, integrations and scripts.

You can avoid this pitfall by looking for an ITSM platform that is easy to use, own and operate. What does that mean? To start, you want to find one that offers codeless capabilities. Meaning you don’t need coding or scripting to set up new portals of forms. This will allow you to easily administer the tool throughout your organization and lessen the administrative burden on IT when it comes to service delivery. Instead, you can engage in true Enterprise Service Management and invite departments across your organization to utilize the same ITSM tool for all service delivery. These tools often have the same features and functionalities as the more complex ITSM tools in the market, but for a lower total cost of ownership.

2. Building Out a Knowledge Base is a Waste of Time and Resources

Believe it or not, a searchable knowledge base can be one of your most valuable assets. With a knowledge base, you can engage in and promote self-service. With a knowledge base, employees and customers can find the answers they need to questions they have about your business or products.

By building out your knowledge base and promoting self-service you can help to lower inbound call volumes and increase customer satisfaction by getting them the answers they need quickly. And while it can seem like a lot of work to build out a knowledge base, methodology like Knowledge-Centered Service® (KCS) to crowdsource the articles can help and the payoff for IT can be huge.

At the University of South Dakota (USD) they built out their knowledge base using KCS and quickly saw an 18% reduction in time logged to service tickets.

3. A Single Platform Approach to ITSM with Project Management, Automation and Integration Doesn’t Work

Resource capacity planning can make a big difference for any organization – especially now as many employees continue to work either remotely or in hybrid situations. In order to properly plan, you need to have visibility into all of the projects and resources across your organization and the best way to do this is by combining your ITSM with Project Portfolio Management (PPM) on a single platform. This approach is especially useful when you have limited resources but an increase in demand.

You can add an integration and automation layer to this with some ITSM tools by utilizing an iPaaS (integration platform as a service) platform to automate tasks and connect disparate systems throughout your organization.

When you supercharge your service and project management with iPaaS, employees no longer need to spend time on repetitive tasks like resetting passwords or granting permissions to software – this can be automated with iPaaS workflows using forms on your existing service portal.

Andrew Graf is the Chief Product Strategist for TeamDynamix. His passion lies in helping organizations thrive in an ever-changing environment. As a co-founder of TeamDynamix, Andrew is well versed in the common issues facing IT leaders – as the need for increased IT Maturity rises, he is able to help map out a way forward.