IT Service Desk Evolution: Preparing Your People for GenAI Adoption

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming IT support and wider IT service management (ITSM) capabilities. In particular, it offers “better, faster, cheaper” IT service desk capabilities that should make life easier and better for IT service desk agents and the people they serve, i.e. your end-users.

However, as with any technology change, simply implementing the new GenAI capabilities might not be enough for your organization to fully benefit from them. Instead, organizational change management tools and techniques are needed to recognize that the introduction is not just a technology change; it’s a business and people change. After all, ways of working will likely change to accommodate the use of the GenAI capabilities.

Organizational change management in a nutshell

Organizational change management, or OCM, is nothing new. However, its addition to ITIL 4 in 2019 (along with use guidance) has made it far more accessible to ITSM professionals and their organizations.

My earlier blog, What’s Organizational Change Management and Why Should ITSM Pros Be Bothered?, shares more about OCM. But here’s my elevator pitch: “OCM focuses on managing the people side of change. It helps to prepare people for change (including technology change). It ensures new ways of working tools are embraced, adopted, and sustained.”

If you prefer formal definitions, the ITIL Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition guidance states that:

“The purpose of the OCM practice is to ensure that changes in an organization are smoothly and successfully implemented, and that lasting benefits are achieved by managing the human aspects of the changes.”

Importantly, the lack of OCM can slow down and even derail the introduction of new technologies.

For at least the last decade, the statistic that 70% of change initiatives fail has been bandied about. This is backed by more recent WTW survey data that found:

• Only 43% of employees said their organization is good at managing change
• Only 25% of organizations have employees who said managing change was a major strength of senior leaders.

Ultimately, OCM is a structured approach to successfully delivering change. It focuses on people, and, importantly, it’s often crucial for technology-based change that affects operations.

Applying OCM tools and techniques to GenAI adoption

If you’re an ITSM professional who uses ITIL best practices, you might have seen that the ITIL 4 OCM guidance includes selling the change, preparing people for change, and maintaining and improving on initial success. Although it could be argued that it’s the preparation that’s really key – importantly, this is preparing people for the change, not simply preparing to do something!

Your organization’s preparation for IT service desk GenAI adoption using OCM tools and techniques should include:

1. Stakeholder analysis and engagement
2. Change impact and readiness assessments
3. Training and enablement programs

Each of these OCM needs is covered below.

1. Stakeholder analysis and engagement

This starts with identifying your key stakeholders. You might be surprised to learn who these are, but they are likely to be IT support staff, senior management, and end-users at minimum. Each stakeholder group might require different techniques for active engagement, feedback collection, and addressing any concerns about GenAI use.

This can be driven by the different perspectives. For example, your IT support staff might be worried about the impact of GenAI use on their job security. Or that the technology might “cream off” the easier work while leaving them to deal with more complicated tasks – meaning performance metrics and potentially employee well-being are adversely affected. Users may become frustrated when the technology struggles to handle unique or complex issues, leaving them unsure of what to do next—especially if their personal experiences with AI have set similar expectations. End-users might also feel they’re missing the reassurance and guidance that human IT service desk agents typically provide.

2. Change impact and readiness assessments

Understanding how stakeholders view GenAI-related changes and their knowledge of GenAI capabilities should drive the actions necessary to ensure that everyone understands how GenAI use will impact day-to-day tasks and workflows. This includes foundational information, such as why GenAI is being introduced to improve IT support operations and outcomes and the impact of GenAI’s introduction on the status quo.

The readiness assessment not only paints a picture of the likeliness of GenAI adoption success but is also critical for assessing current knowledge and comfort levels with GenAI (or simply AI) to create the required training and support resources for each stakeholder group.

3. Training and enablement programs

Successfully implementing GenAI requires more than just technology—it demands thoughtful training tailored to the needs of each stakeholder group:

• IT Support Staff: Provide focused training sessions that cover foundational AI and GenAI concepts as well as hands-on “how-to-use” guidance for relevant tools. Prepare them to troubleshoot AI functionality and confidently explain the “what, why, and how” of GenAI to end-users, particularly those who may be curious or resistant.
• End-Users: Go beyond basic instructions on using tools like virtual agents. Build trust by transparently explaining how GenAI works, the benefits it delivers, and the safeguards in place to ensure reliability and fairness. For example, show how GenAI recommendations are generated or how users can escalate issues to human agents if needed. Transparency is key to encouraging adoption and confidence.
• Senior Leadership: Highlight the transformative potential of GenAI while being clear about its current limitations. Emphasize how GenAI-powered data analytics can provide actionable insights, trends, and predictive analysis to support data-driven decision-making. For instance, leaders can use AI insights to identify process bottlenecks, predict ticket volumes, or measure the ROI of GenAI initiatives.

By addressing the distinct needs of each group, you’ll foster trust in the technology, empower users, and pave the way for long-term success with GenAI.

But that’s not all

These preparatory tasks will increase your probability of change success with GenAI adoption. I’m sure you’ve heard the management mantra that “failing to plan is planning to fail” before. However, there are other factors, too.

For example, a communication plan that regularly updates staff about the adoption process is vital to keeping people informed (and perhaps reminded). Feedback loops should also be in place to help address employee resistance and continuously improve engagement. Finally, suitable metrics are needed to understand how well the change is going for different stakeholder groups.

Hopefully, my blog has you thinking about the people aspects of GenAI adoption and the use of OCM tools and techniques to improve the probability of change success. How are you using GenAI in your organization? Let me know in the comments.