Note: There is an updated version of this hottest ITSM trends post for 2023. You can read it here. At the end of 2021, we polled readers on the topic areas they and their fellow IT service management (ITSM) practitioners would like content-related help with in 2022. We like to think of the results as “the hottest ITSM trends and topics for 2022” for the IT industry and potentially broader service management use cases. This article not only shares the results of our 2022 content poll, but also offers insight into the trends we have seen over the last five years.
How the “Hottest ITSM Trends and Topics” poll works
An anonymous poll was made available for anyone to vote on in December 2021. The survey respondents could choose their five most important ITSM topics, relative to new ITSM.tools content, from a total of 25 options.
Sharing the hottest ITSM trends poll results isn’t to tell readers where to focus. Instead, they offer you helpful insight into where the ITSM community is and, if needed, provide a sense check for your current improvement plans for 2022.
The results of the 2022 content poll
Your time and attention are likely more valuable than they have ever been, so here’s a quick snapshot of the hottest ITSM trends:
Note – The percentages add up to 500% because each respondent chose five options.
Employee experience management and #ITSM 'advanced' enter the hottest topics for 2022 list, with #artificialintelligence, #automation & #ITIL4 dropping outside the Top 5. As voted for by YOU. Click To TweetThe five hottest ITSM Trends for 2022 versus those for 2021
So, the top five topic areas for 2022 are:
- ITSM “advanced”
- Enterprise service management
- Digital transformation/digital workflows
- People (including attitude, behavior, and culture (ABC))
- Employee experience management
Versus the hottest ITSM trends for 2021:
- Digital transformation/digital workflows
- Artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning
- Automation
- People (including attitude, behavior, and culture (ABC))
- Enterprise service management and ITIL 4 (joint)
The main 2022 changes
A comparison of these two hottest ITSM trends top-five lists shows that:
- ITSM “advanced” has appeared from nowhere to top the list (as you’ll see later, it was last in the top five in 2018)
- Enterprise service management has jumped from #5 to #2
- Digital transformation has dropped two places, with this likely due to corporate efforts having advanced rapidly as the global pandemic continued
- People has remained static at #4, although I can’t help thinking that this vote is more about ambition than it is execution
- Employee experience management has broken into the top five for the first time
- Automation has dropped out of the top five for the first time and artificial intelligence (AI) interest has fallen significantly too – as shown in the chart below
- ITIL 4 has dropped out of the top five, but ITSM “advanced” and the joint-sixth-placed value demonstration option are likely its progeny
The chart below shows these and other changes in hottest ITSM trends across a five-year period, and offers some interesting story arcs on the evolution of ITSM that we will return to in a later article. This evolution includes what we think is the expected impact of ITIL 4 in 2022 as organizations seek to do more than they do now (in ITSM terms), including the greater use of intelligent automation.
Existing hottest ITSM trend content
While the poll was to identify what readers want in 2022, it also allows us to resurface existing hottest ITSM trends content that might be helpful.
1. ITSM “advanced (although this is currently technology-focused content):
- The State of IT Self-Service in 2021
- The State of Service Management 2021
- Wherever and Whenever – How to Support Remote Workers and Mobile Teams
- The Chatbot Manifesto
- The Current State of AI Adoption in ITSM
- How to Succeed with AI in Your Organization
- Enabling IT Self-Service with Intelligent Automation and Proactive Remediation
- Expert Guidance for AI Success in ITSM Use Cases
- How AI Will Impact ITSM in the Next Few Years
- Viewing AIOps Through a Business Lens
2. Enterprise service management:
- What’s Needed for Successful Enterprise Service Management
- Selling the Opportunity of Enterprise Service Management to Your Organization
- The State of Service Management 2021
- Enterprise Service Management Explained
- Challenges of the Enterprise Service Desk: It’s Not Just a Desk
- Enterprise Service Management Tips? Heck Yeh!
- How Enterprise Service Management Can Learn from Digital Transformation Initiatives
- Is Your Company Ready for Enterprise Service Management?
- 5 Tips for Effective Enterprise Service Management Planning
- Enterprise Service Management – Not Just About ITSM Processes
Please note the earlier publication dates with articles #6 to #10.
Note: There is an updated version of this hottest ITSM trends post for 2023. You can read it here.
3. Digital transformation/digital workflows:
- Digital Transformation and the Need for a Better Service Experience
- How a “The Customer is Always Right” Strategy Helps to Ensure Digital Transformation Success
- Digital Transformation Is Not a Chatbot
- Digital Transformation: A Look at The Future, Examining the Past
- Digital Transformation Core Capabilities: Navigational Aids for a VUCA World
- Culture and Transformation
- Why Organizational Integration is Essential to Digital Transformation
- Supporting Digital Transformation with ITSM and ITIL 4
- Don’t Let an ABC Earthquake Destroy Your Organization’s Digital Transformation
- 8 Tips for Starting with Digital Transformation
4. People (including attitude, behavior, and culture (ABC)):
- Onboarding Your People: First Impressions Count
- (Nearly) Everything You Need to Know About Being an ITSM Pro
- How Can ITSM Practitioners Improve Themselves in 2022?
- Using Experience Feedback to Up IT Service Desk Analyst Motivation
- How Do You Value Your Time (and the Time of Others)?
- IT Leaders: It’s Time to Talk About Mental Health
- So, How’s Remote Working Doing in Your Organization?
- 12 Books Every ITSM Practitioner Should Read
- 41 Pieces of Practical Advice for IT Leaders for 2021
- Are Your People, Processes, and Technology Ready for the “New Normal”?
5. Employee experience management:
- What 2022 Needs to Know About Employee Experience
- How to Engender an Experience Management Culture in Your IT Organization
- Digital Transformation and the Need for a Better Service Experience
- Solution Snapshot – DEX Solutions in the ServiceNow Partner Ecosystem
- Why Continual Improvement Needs Experience Data
- Using Experience Feedback to Up IT Service Desk Analyst Motivation
- How to Measure Employee Experience
- So, How’s Remote Working Doing in Your Organization?
- Employee Experience Explained for IT Service Desks
The year ahead
When publishing ITSM content, ITSM.tools continues to have its readers front of mind. So, please contact us about the ITSM topics that will help you most. We’ll, of course, use the hottest ITSM trends poll results to drive our content plans for the year ahead and if you can help with new content on these topics, please submit an article.
Finally, thank you for being a reader. We hope to deliver another year of helpful, shared ITSM content.
Note: There is an updated version of this hottest ITSM trends post for 2023. You can read it here.
If you want to read more ITSM articles, please look at these:
- Not Everyone Needs a Complicated ITSM Tool
- Good Attitudes Are Still Prevalent in ITSM
- The Top 3 Virtual Infrastructure Challenges (and How to Overcome Them)
- The Benefits of Better Invoice Management with SIAM
- Technological Improvement Needs More Than Technology
Sophie Danby
Sophie is a freelance ITSM marketing consultant, helping ITSM solution vendors to develop and implement effective marketing strategies.
She covers both traditional areas of marketing (such as advertising, trade shows, and events) and digital marketing (such as video, social media, and email marketing). She is also a trained editor. Y
