ITSM Articles

Illustrated header showing Lynda Cooper and Roman Zhuravlev as stylized figures seated on large colorful 3D letters representing ISO 20000

How ISO 20000 Has Stayed Useful for Twenty Years

Lynda Cooper has edited ISO 20000 for more than a decade. Her explanation for why the standard has stayed useful for twenty years is also her clearest answer to the question people keep getting wrong about it: standards tell you what to do, not how to do it. The how is what frameworks like ITIL are for, and this article walks through where each one fits.
AI agent deployment failure concept illustration showing a man standing beside a crashed car reading a billboard that says "It's not the car. It's the driver!" with the ITSM.tools logo

Why One in Four Enterprise AI Agent Deployments Aren’t Paying Back

A quarter of UK enterprise AI agent deployments aren’t paying back, and new research from KTSL and BMC Helix shows the reasons have almost nothing to do with the technology. This article looks at what’s going wrong inside deployments, why model choice matters less than most vendors suggest, and what enterprises would need to change to close the return gap.
Self-healing ITSM concept illustration showing a large AI robot working at a computer while a manager sleeps in a chair beside the desk

Self-Healing ITSM: Are We Entering the Era of Autonomous Service Management?

AI agents are automating not just operational IT tasks but parts of ITSM platform implementation, configuration, and maintenance. Richard Mendis argues this shift is underway, and that as it matures, organizations should expect lower costs, less manual intervention, and systems that manage themselves. A look at where self-healing ITSM is credible today, and where vendor claims still outrun reality.
Colorful illustration of an overloaded office team, with workers slumped at desks and others buried in tasks, depicting ERP capacity strain

Why Co-Managed IT Is Replacing Staff Augmentation for ERP Support Teams

Staff augmentation has been the default answer to ERP capacity problems for decades. The problem is that it isn’t solving the actual issue. Adding bodies adds hours. It doesn’t change how work flows, who owns outcomes, or whether your internal team ever gets off the reactive treadmill. This article explains why and what to do about it.
Illustrated woman at a desk with a laptop and stack of books, surrounded by swirling colourful shapes representing ideas and creativity

Blogging Tips for ITSM Professionals (Plus How to Use AI Effectively)

Free AI tools make writing easier and quicker, so it’s a good moment to share blogging tips for the people who know ITSM best but haven’t been writing about it. The alternative is content produced by people who don’t know the subject but are happy to use AI to fake it anyway. This article covers what still needs a human, and where the AI tools can carry some of the load.
Colored padlocks representing Security Stories used to design secure services in ITIL (Version 5)

Designing Security into the Product & Service Lifecycle with Security Stories (ITIL (Version 5) & Agile)

Most teams still bolt security on at the end, then act surprised when the audit goes badly. Alex Harding makes the case for Security Stories, negative “what if” scenarios written from the attacker’s viewpoint and dropped straight into the backlog, so security gets designed in rather than retrofitted. A practical look at how the technique maps onto ITIL (Version 5) and where it fits into the design stage.
Unified endpoint management shifting IT operations from reactive to proactive

From Reactive ITSM to Proactive IT Operations: The Role of Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)

More investment, more automation, more AI, and yet ticket volumes refuse to fall. Akshaya argues the reason is that none of it touches the layer where most tickets start: the endpoint. This article looks at how unified endpoint management shifts IT from cleaning up failures to preventing them, and why the organizations doing it run their service desks at a fraction of what their peers spend.
Agentic AI in ITSM removing human judgment and increasing operational risk

Agentic AI in ITSM: Why Removing Human Judgment Increases Risk

Mathies Wähner on why Agentic AI fails in ITSM. Drop it into an operating model that isn’t ready and it doesn’t make you smarter, just faster at being wrong, while quietly removing the people who used to catch the mistakes. The real question isn’t how to implement Agentic AI, but whether your operating model can survive it once it’s running at scale.
SITS26 Recap: Key ITSM, AI, and Service Management Insights

SITS26 Recap: Key ITSM, AI, and Service Management Insights from London    

Mathies Wähner on why Agentic AI fails in ITSM. Drop it into an operating model that isn’t ready and it doesn’t make you smarter, just faster at being wrong, while quietly removing the people who used to catch the mistakes. The real question isn’t how to implement Agentic AI, but whether your operating model can survive it once it’s running at scale.
Why service management keeps outliving its ITSM is dead obituaries

ITSM is Dead? Why Service Management Keeps Outliving Its Obituaries

Somebody announces the death of service management every few years, and they’ve been doing it for 35 years now. Barclay Rae has heard every version and thinks they all miss the same thing: the job at the heart of service management is human, not technological. That’s why no new wave of tech has managed to kill it, and AI has made the case for it stronger.
CTO checklist for building AI-ready IT operations in 2026

The CTO Checklist for AI-Ready IT Operations in 2026

Every new tool promises to simplify IT operations and adds another layer of complexity instead. Rui Alves argues bolting AI onto disconnected systems just gives you automation without intelligence, and the CTOs getting real value in 2026 are doing the unglamorous work first: connecting service management, monitoring, assets, FinOps, and governance into a single operational layer.
How ITSM Supports Compliance Management

How ITSM Supports Compliance Management and Audit Readiness

Compliance evidence is usually assembled from scattered systems, but one source hides in plain sight: your ITSM platform. Mahati Dwibhashi of ManageEngine shows how change records, access approvals, incident logs, and asset data captured through daily operations double as audit evidence for SOC 2 and ISO 27001. She also covers the workflow tweaks that make the data audit-ready.
From VIPs to VIRs

From VIPs to VIRs: Rethinking IT Support Prioritization for Business Impact

Many IT service desks still operate with a “very important person” (VIP) list, treated as long-held IT support best practice. But given how much the business now depends on technology, that list is showing its age, and it’s likely getting in the way of something more useful to the organization. This article makes the case for the VIR list as its replacement.
AI, Transformation, and What Comes First

AI, Transformation, and What Comes First

Every few years, the IT industry settles on a new savior. Agile. Then DevOps. Now AI. Kaimar Karu argues organizations adopt each one without first knowing what they want from it, then act surprised when results don’t live up to the hype. In this episode of Roman Jouravlev’s Conversations with Giants series, Kaimar covers why AI should never be the goal in itself and the skills technology won’t replace.
How Problem Management Transforms ITSM

From Firefighting to Prevention: How Problem Management Transforms ITSM

IT support teams often spend all their time reacting to issues – resetting passwords, restoring services, responding to issues (incidents), and managing major incidents such as outages. In this article, learn how problem management helps eliminate root causes, reduce repeat incidents, lower costs, and shift IT from firefighting to prevention.