IT Service Management (ITSM) Learnings From SITS 2024

After a couple of days at the Service Desk and IT Support Show (SITS) in April, I came away with lots of IT service management (ITSM) learnings. So, following on from my initial blog on the things I’ve taken away from SITS written for i3Works, here are some more shared ITSM learnings.

In this articles @Vawns shares 10 key #ITSM learnings/takeaways from @SITS_UK #SITS24 #ServiceDesk Click To Tweet

10 ITSM learnings

1. AI governance and ethics – automation is everywhere, but how do we know we’re doing it right? What about safeguards and ethics? A common ITSM learnings theme from all of the AI discussions is that it’s important to have a policy that sets out the ethics, privacy, transparency, accountability, safety, and societal impact of AI usage.
2. IT security – as cybersecurity threats evolve, the threat landscape increases. IT departments and business stakeholders want to ensure that our tools and practices have security measures to protect our services, data, and people. This might include implementing multi-factor authentication, user security awareness training, and robust incident response protocols.
3. Self-service – it’s a great way to empower your customers and end users. By enabling your people to raise and update their own incidents and requests, you’re giving them more engagement options while freeing up technicians to work on more complex technical tasks. A lot of the AI-related ITSM learnings tied in with self-service.
4. SIAM can be challenging to get right – Martin Goble’s session on SIAM was a really informative take on best practices and avoiding common pitfalls. SIAM is often seen as a silver bullet, but there’s very little practical guidance on what to do. Martin’s key takeaway from the session? “Think very carefully before implementing SIAM. Do your prep work and really think about what you want to achieve.”
5. Knowledge sharing and collaboration – IT service desks and technical support teams are recognizing the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing across support tiers. This ITSM learning might involve implementing collaboration tools for internal communication, centralizing knowledge articles and troubleshooting guides in a single location, and fostering a culture of continual learning and improvement.
6. Selecting the right ITSM tool for your organization is vital – Misha Macinski from Pink Elephant talked about best practices for ITSM tool selection. ITSM tools are expensive so it’s important to get it right – starting at the requirements-gathering stage.
7. We’re still struggling to deal with major incidents – Richard Josey gave a practical session on major incident management (MIM), which looked at the operational and physiological dimensions of dealing with major incidents effectively. One of the key ITSM learnings is that it’s an important skill set to have if you work in a service desk environment, and a lot of the guidance focuses on technical and process skills, but good people management is just as important.
8. The CMDB game has changed – CMDBs are so much more than a static database that sits somewhere in “IT land” quietly gathering dust. Using CMDBs to drive automation can help sysadmins manage complex IT environments and support tasks. Integrating CMDB-based tools enables technical teams to automate a range of tasks, such as releasing software, patches, and updates, identifying system components that are erroring, managing assets, and using events and alerts to mitigate the impact of incidents.
9. Practical guidance on XLAs – eXperience Level Agreements (XLAs) can be a game-changer for improving colleague and customer engagement. Done well, they can complement existing service level agreements (SLAs) by adding a user experience context to service delivery. This will give a more customer-centric view of service performance, which in turn drives service and process improvements.
10. Service monitoring is the future – effective service monitoring can be the difference between effective and terrible service delivery. One of the key ITSM learnings is that by building on existing event management functions, you can implement systems and processes to continuously monitor the user experience in real-time. This could include automated monitoring tools, user feedback mechanisms, and regular performance reviews. This data can then be used to identify problems and optimize the user experience over time.

So, that was my second lot of ITSM learnings from SITS. What do you think? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments, email me at [email protected], look me up on LinkedIn, or find me on X; I’m @vawns.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed this ITSM Learnings article, you may also enjoy some of the related IT service desk articles listed below.

What Are User Management Systems and How Do They Impact ITSM?

Setting Up an IT Service Desk Part 5 – Setting Up Your IT Service Desk Tool

Problem Management Tips