SITS 2022: Why I’m Excited for the Return of In-person ITSM Events

In-person ITSM Events

Like many other ITSMers, I’ve missed ITSM events. Thankfully, I’ll be making the journey into London this week for the Service Desk and IT Support Show or SITS. This will be the first in-person IT service management (ITSM) industry event I’ve attended since 2019, so I’m really excited. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on our community; even if folks managed to escape the virus, many of us worked long hours and had to juggle working from home with looking after other family members. It was rough, and now that the world is returning to normal, I can’t wait to catch up with friends and see what’s new in the ITSM world. Here are some more things I’m looking forward to.

The people at ITSM events

The hardest thing for me during lockdown was feeling isolated. I’m a single parent with three children, so the reality is that I’m never alone. When the first COVID-19 restrictions were announced, I told my children it would be absolutely fine, that we’d just treat it like the week between Christmas and New Year where we’d just snuggle up and watch films and play board games.

What I didn’t anticipate was how hard it would be not having other people to see. I’m a massive extrovert, and I get all my energy from bouncing off other people. Being at home, trying to work, homeschooling, and keeping everyone fed and safe was a mission. One of the things I was most grateful for was being able to Facetime friends or have cocktail parties over Zoom, but it’s so much more fun in real life. I, for one, can’t wait to catch up with friends, colleagues, and industry peers in person at ITSM events. There are so many brilliant people in the ITSM community, and SITS gives you the opportunity to network, talk with like-minded folks, and compare notes. Something that I think we all missed during the pandemic.

New ITSM best practice

There’s lots of newness in best practice, so there’s lots to be excited about. The new version of ITIL detailed best practice launched just as the pandemic hit us, and I’m really excited to finally be able to have all the chats with other industry folks about it at ITSM events. Do we like it? Love it? What about the whole change control/change enablement naming kerfuffle? (FYI, I am team #ChangeEnablement). What do we think about the shift to the Service Value Chain? There’s also a new ITIL maturity model out there.

You can check out the SITS 2022 keynote program here and the education program here. For early risers and overachievers, there’s a set of breakfast sessions (detailed here) and round tables to discuss hot topics, which you can check out here.

Advances in ITSM tools and automation

I think that we can all agree that service desks and IT departments were run ragged during the pandemic. We had to support the shift to remote support and adapt to brand new ways of working. For many, SITS and other ITSM events will be an opportunity to talk with tool vendors to see what’s new in the ITSM tool landscape. Want to introduce self-service? There’s a tool out there that will be right for your users. Want to improve technician engagement? Have a look at gamification. Want to make your practices more efficient? There’ll be a way to use automation to do more of the heavy lifting. You can check out the list of ITSM tool providers attending SITS here.

So, that’s my take on what I’m most looking forward to at SITS. If you’ve not yet done so, you can register for SITS 2022 here. If you’ve not been before and you’re wondering whether to – just do it. It’s free, you’ll meet lots of brilliant people, and there are loads of masterclasses and presentations.

What are you most excited about with ITSM events? Please let me know in the comments, drop me an email at [email protected], or find me on Twitter; I’m @vawns.

Vawns Murphy
Senior ITSM Consultant at i3Works

Vawns Murphy holds qualifications in ITIL V2 Manager (red badge) and ITIL V3 Expert (purple badge), and also has an SDI Managers certificate. Plus she holds further qualifications in COBIT, ISO 20000, SAM, PRINCE2, and Microsoft. In addition, she is an author of itSMF UK collateral on Service Transition, Software Asset Management, Problem Management and the "How to do CCRM" book. She was also a reviewer for the Service Transition ITIL 3 2011 publication.

In addition to her day job as a Senior ITSM Consultant at i3Works, she is also an Associate Analyst at ITSM.tools.

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