Your guide to managing the end-to-end delivery of IT services for great customer experiences.
Your ability to swiftly respond to unexpected disruptions and restore operations is vital. ITSM practices provide long-term solutions to improve the quality of your services.
Managing the lifecycles and reliability of your IT assets and coordinating changes in infrastructure and services to align with business goals ensures stable and secure IT operations as your business needs and technology naturally evolve.
In ITSM, configuration items (CIs) are any components of the IT infrastructure that are managed in order to deliver IT services.
Incident management
Incident management is a crucial part of any service management process. It involves responding to an unplanned event or service disruption and restoring it to an operational state.
Employing an incident management strategy helps make sure that tickets are raised correctly for faster resolution times. In ITSM, Jira Service Management (JSM) has powerful incident management features that allow on-call teams to be alerted immediately when incidents or monitoring events occur and encourage modern resolution techniques such as incident swarming.
Problem management
Problem management is about identifying and addressing the root cause of incidents to stop them from happening again. It involves in-depth analysis, categorizing problems, and implementing effective, long-term solutions for improved service quality.
Jira Service Management has features to systematically track, investigate, and resolve problems, fostering a more resilient IT infrastructure and contributing to continuous service improvement.
Implementing problem management helps minimise service interruptions, optimizes system reliability, and increases the efficiency of IT service delivery.
Asset and configuration management
Assets refer to anything that contributes to the delivery of an IT product or service. IT Asset Management (ITAM) is a sub-practice of asset management specifically aimed at managing the lifecycles and total cost of your IT equipment and infrastructure.
The purpose of configuration management is to give you accurate and reliable information on the setup of your services and to make sure that the assets that support them are available when needed. It includes how different components interact and depend on one another within an IT environment.
Change enablement
Change enablement is the planning, coordinating, and controlling of changes in your IT infrastructure, systems, apps, and services. It involves evaluating suggested changes and approvals, implementation with minimal disruption, and aligning business goals to minimise risks.
The aim is to manage and control change to maintain the stability, reliability, and security of your IT services while allowing your business to adapt to evolving needs and technological advancements.
Service desks
This is where your IT team prioritizes, categorizes, and resolves issues logged by your users and customers.
Having a central role in ITSM, service desks not only act as a primary point of contact but facilitate the monitoring of SLAs, customer satisfaction, and the co-creation of value for continuous improvement.
ServiceNow, Freshservice, and Jira Service Management are popular examples of service desk apps used by businesses to deliver IT services.
Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing in IT Service Management is the process of capturing, storing, and sharing information, best practices, troubleshooting guides, and other valuable material related to IT services and operations.
Knowledge sharing helps improve the efficiency and consistency of service delivery by acting as a hub for problem-solving and reducing resolution times to incidents and service requests. Examples of popular apps include Confluence and SharePoint.
Find out how The Very Group, a retail business with a financial services component, leveraged Jira Service Management to lock down controls around access to financial systems and ensure they had an audit trail of access requests. JSM also improved the customer experience for The Very Group by streamlining processes and simplifying support requests.
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Without specialist tools, your processes would rely heavily on the likes of spreadsheets and emails for ITSM, meaning it’d be more costly in terms of time. While it’s possible to manage IT services this way, it isn’t ideal as the complexity and volume of requests naturally increase.
The benefits of ITSM tools
Analytics: You need to be able to track service performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.
Seek ITSM platforms that give you comprehensive analytics capabilities, with insights into the performance of your services and trends to identify areas for improvement.
Automation: It’s important not to automate for the sake of it. Tools help to automate routine tasks, such as incident management, change enablement, and service requests, reducing manual labour and the potential for errors.
Atlassian’s JSM is a good example of a tool that has this feature, giving you complete control over what processes can be automated.
Efficiency: By streamlining processes and providing workflows, ITSM tools offer efficiency so that teams can deliver services faster.
Consolidation: ITSM tools typically offer centralized platforms for managing all aspects of IT, for example, service catalogs, knowledge bases, and reporting, improving visibility and control.
Integration: Many solutions integrate with other ITSM systems, such as tools for monitoring and asset discovery, which allows for seamless data sharing and better collaboration.
Some solutions offer seamless integration with third-party apps so that your department can centralize customer support operations and streamline workflows effectively.
Learn how Zettle, a financial technology company acquired by PayPal, used Atlassian's ITSM solution, Jira Service Management, to support the company's rapid growth. JSM made collaboration easier and improved productivity and efficiency amongst teams.
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Governance in ITSM is all about the compliance of practices with relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards. It involves audits, staying informed about changes, and implementing controls which can be thought of as rules set out in policies, procedures, and guidelines that help IT stay aligned with business objectives.
Risk management comes under governance and includes identifying, assessing, and managing risks associated with IT services and infrastructure. It involves mitigation, security, availability, and reliability.
Governance covers performance metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of ITSM practices and processes so that your business can monitor performance, identify opportunities, and drive continuous initiatives for improvement.
By implementing ITIL4 (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) best practices, you can establish robust governance frameworks that ensure IT services are delivered and managed in a way that meets business objectives, complies with regulations, and manages risks.
Key areas where AI is making a difference in ITSM include
Automation: AI-powered automation streamlines routine tasks and processes in ITSM, such as incident management, service request fulfillment, and change enablement.
Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs): IVAs, also known as chatbots or virtual assistants, leverage AI and natural language processing to provide 24/7 support to users. IVAs can assist with common IT service requests and troubleshooting and offer guidance, improving user experiences and reducing response times.
Predictive analytics: AI enables predictive analytics in ITSM by reviewing historical data to identify patterns, trends, and potential issues before they arise. Predictive analytics can help in proactive problem management, capacity planning, and service demand expectancy, leading to improved availability and performance.
ITSM knowledge management: AI-powered knowledge management systems use machine learning algorithms to analyse and organise large amounts of unstructured data, including articles, documentation, and past incidents. This helps IT staff find relevant information and solutions to improve resolution times.
IT asset management: Automates asset discovery, tracking, and inventory management. AI algorithms can analyse usage patterns and lifecycle data for optimization, cost reductions, and compliance with licensing agreements and regulations.
Sentiment analysis: AI-powered sentiment analysis tools monitor user feedback, social media, and other sources to gauge user satisfaction with IT services. This feedback can be leveraged to identify areas for improvement.
Incident prediction and resolution: AI algorithms can analyse historical incidents to predict and prevent future incidents from occurring. By identifying common root causes and patterns, AI helps IT teams proactively address underlying issues, reduce the number of incidents, and improve stability.
Continuous improvement: AI facilitates continuous improvement in ITSM by analyzing performance data, identifying bottlenecks, and suggesting process improvements to optimise processes, improve service delivery, and drive business value.
AI tools for ITSM
In ITSM, tools like Jira Service Management and ServiceNow are proving how AI can be integrated into ITSM for efficiency and improved service quality.
Jira Service Management incorporates AI capabilities to automate repetitive tasks, analyse service data, and improve incident resolution times in ITSM processes.
It's easy to see AI as a threat to your team rather than a complementary service that will revolutionize your automation, predictive analytics, and decision-making capabilities. AI's ability to analyse vast amounts of data will surely aid problem resolution times, predictive maintenance, and the delivery of services to improve user experiences and increase productivity.
While it has its benefits, caution should be practiced in over-relying on AI in the world of ITSM, as challenges related to data privacy, ethics, and the need for upskilling the workforce to leverage and collaborate with systems are expected.
The growing complexity of IT environments and the need for streamlined operations make ITSM a crucial area for innovation and improvement. The future of AI in ITSM holds immense potential to reshape operations, drive innovation, and deliver greater business value.
Using the capabilities of ITSM software, Cambio, a Scandinavian leader in e-health, was able to keep its backlog down, allowing more time to support users.
Read the case study
Your guide to managing the end-to-end delivery of IT services for great customer experiences.
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