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The Changing Game of IT Service Management

Dennis Drogseth

If you think that ITSM (IT Service Management) is static and old hat, think twice. A huge number of innovations are just emerging. Some have been a long time in coming; while others are unexpected surprises — as analytics and automation are changing the ITSM game dramatically.

Here are some trends that I’ve seen in 2014 that I expect will grow in importance in 2015. Some may explode into prominence, but I expect most will continue to rise more gradually into industry consciousness, which is typical of the more profound transformations versus those that enjoy a chic but shallow industry cachet.

■ As the role of IT is changing to become a more front-office (as opposed to back-office) presence, ITSM will become a yet more critical part of that transformation. Why is this? ITSM can become a new center for IT insights, governance, automation, and analytics to come together with a fully human voice, capturing vital perspectives on real user experience and sharing them with development and operations. But to do so, ITSM will have to change in its technology adoption priorities, as indicated in the following discussions.

■ Mobile, wireless, and social IT will become a more important part of that transformation — as end-point awareness becomes ever more critical in delivering, sustaining and optimizing IT services. Critical “areas to watch” in 2015 include: managing and optimizing endpoints as performing assets while cultivating the powers of enhanced GUI designs, mobile and social IT to promote improved service interaction.

■ Automation will be one of the biggest game changers for ITSM, with the potential to impact virtually every other “game-changer” here. While ITSM is traditionally viewed in terms of “service desk”, as it evolves it will reach out through automation and analytics to include operations, and even development, far more proactively. This is true whether we’re talking about configuration automation, more advanced workflows, runbook or IT process automation, or other automation investments.

■ Perhaps nowhere will automation become more conspicuous than in the changing role of change management (including release and configuration management) from slow, laborious and fragmented manual processes to more streamlined and yet more service-aware capabilities. In 2015, I predict that automation, service modeling, and analytics will begin to come together in new ways, with far less overhead than in the past — transforming not only ITSM but service management even more broadly. This will be one area in 2015 where agile, DevOps, and ITSM will begin to converge.

■ None of the above will work, however, without attention to governance, process, dialog, and business alignment. Fragmented, piecemeal automation can result in train wrecks, while cloud computing is adding ever more options that need to be assessed for performance, usage, capacity, and costs. ITSM will begin to play a role as an interactive center for that dialog in 2015, at least in some IT environments, with a new face and a new look.

Does all this sound like wishful thinking? Maybe, but I’ve already seen good evidence supporting everything here.

I’m also holding myself accountable, as we’ll be doing some unique research beginning in January — looking at the future of ITSM. If the data proves me right, or even if it proves me wrong, I promise you’ll hear from me when the results are in some time in February.

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The Changing Game of IT Service Management

Dennis Drogseth

If you think that ITSM (IT Service Management) is static and old hat, think twice. A huge number of innovations are just emerging. Some have been a long time in coming; while others are unexpected surprises — as analytics and automation are changing the ITSM game dramatically.

Here are some trends that I’ve seen in 2014 that I expect will grow in importance in 2015. Some may explode into prominence, but I expect most will continue to rise more gradually into industry consciousness, which is typical of the more profound transformations versus those that enjoy a chic but shallow industry cachet.

■ As the role of IT is changing to become a more front-office (as opposed to back-office) presence, ITSM will become a yet more critical part of that transformation. Why is this? ITSM can become a new center for IT insights, governance, automation, and analytics to come together with a fully human voice, capturing vital perspectives on real user experience and sharing them with development and operations. But to do so, ITSM will have to change in its technology adoption priorities, as indicated in the following discussions.

■ Mobile, wireless, and social IT will become a more important part of that transformation — as end-point awareness becomes ever more critical in delivering, sustaining and optimizing IT services. Critical “areas to watch” in 2015 include: managing and optimizing endpoints as performing assets while cultivating the powers of enhanced GUI designs, mobile and social IT to promote improved service interaction.

■ Automation will be one of the biggest game changers for ITSM, with the potential to impact virtually every other “game-changer” here. While ITSM is traditionally viewed in terms of “service desk”, as it evolves it will reach out through automation and analytics to include operations, and even development, far more proactively. This is true whether we’re talking about configuration automation, more advanced workflows, runbook or IT process automation, or other automation investments.

■ Perhaps nowhere will automation become more conspicuous than in the changing role of change management (including release and configuration management) from slow, laborious and fragmented manual processes to more streamlined and yet more service-aware capabilities. In 2015, I predict that automation, service modeling, and analytics will begin to come together in new ways, with far less overhead than in the past — transforming not only ITSM but service management even more broadly. This will be one area in 2015 where agile, DevOps, and ITSM will begin to converge.

■ None of the above will work, however, without attention to governance, process, dialog, and business alignment. Fragmented, piecemeal automation can result in train wrecks, while cloud computing is adding ever more options that need to be assessed for performance, usage, capacity, and costs. ITSM will begin to play a role as an interactive center for that dialog in 2015, at least in some IT environments, with a new face and a new look.

Does all this sound like wishful thinking? Maybe, but I’ve already seen good evidence supporting everything here.

I’m also holding myself accountable, as we’ll be doing some unique research beginning in January — looking at the future of ITSM. If the data proves me right, or even if it proves me wrong, I promise you’ll hear from me when the results are in some time in February.

Hot Topics

The Latest

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 14, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud network observability... 

While companies adopt AI at a record pace, they also face the challenge of finding a smart and scalable way to manage its rapidly growing costs. This requires balancing the massive possibilities inherent in AI with the need to control cloud costs, aim for long-term profitability and optimize spending ...

Telecommunications is expanding at an unprecedented pace ... But progress brings complexity. As WanAware's 2025 Telecom Observability Benchmark Report reveals, many operators are discovering that modernization requires more than physical build outs and CapEx — it also demands the tools and insights to manage, secure, and optimize this fast-growing infrastructure in real time ...

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...