IT Service Desk Evolution: Preparing for Copilot Adoption

There’s no doubt that the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Copilots will revolutionize IT service desk practices and how IT support is delivered. However, as with everything else in IT service management (ITSM), IT services are delivered via a blend of people, processes, and technology. Hence, any IT organization looking to benefit from the opportunities brought by Copilots must ensure that the changes they make address all three of people, processes, and technology. To help, this blog looks at the necessary work to prepare your people Copilot adoption and the introduction of Copilot capabilities.

Who are “the people”?

Before jumping into the details of what’s needed (to prepare people for Copilot adoption), there’s a need to be clear on who these people are.

In an IT support context, Copilots will be used by both IT service desk agents and the people they serve. This is shown by some of the key Copilot capabilities that could be adopted. For example, IT service desk agents become more productive through intelligent work intake (automatically classifying, prioritizing, and routing incident and service request tickets to the appropriate team), real-time assistance (offering suggestions to help with ticket handling), ticket summarization capabilities, and writing assistance. Both end-users and IT support staff benefit from virtual agents (often called chatbots) that quickly deal with end-user issues and requests conversationally. Even when the IT service desk is closed.

Please bear this dual people-change requirement in mind when reading the guidance on preparing people for Copilots.

Copilot adoption as a change

While Copilots are technology, as with the introduction of any new technology, there’s likely to be an associated change to the traditional ways of working. This means that what could be considered a technology change is, in fact, an organizational change that requires effective organizational change management.

ITIL 4, the popular body of service management best practice guidance formerly known as the IT Infrastructure Library, offers a practice guide for organizational change management. This guidance presents business-wide organizational change management best practices and tools and techniques in the context of service management needs.

Preparing employees for Copilots

As mentioned above, Copilot introduction to the IT service desk will affect both IT support staff and the people they serve. While both parties will need to be focused on and their needs addressed, there’s a commonality regarding the approach.

Organizational change management is multifaceted, but there are five areas your organization can leverage to help ensure the effective adoption of Copilots. These areas are engagement, communication, employee support, change impact analysis and risk management, and training.

Each of these areas is covered in more detail in the following section.

1. Organizational change management – engagement

Organizational change management requires that key business stakeholders are involved from the outset (of the change). As to who these stakeholders are, “stakeholder analysis” techniques can be used to identify the various people and groups affected by the introduction of Copilots.

In terms of engaging the identified business stakeholders – which will include IT support staff and the people they serve – the organizational change management efforts should focus on:

1. Unearthing the concerns, reservations, and motivations of the people involved
2. Including the identified business stakeholders in decision-making.

In addition to engagement, this also helps to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts, facilitating people’s buy-in to Copilot adoption.

2. Organizational change management – communication

You might be thinking, “Hold on, isn’t communication part of engagement?” It is, and communication can be considered engagement. However, communication is important enough to Copilot adoption success – or any organizational change success, for that matter – that it should be treated as a separate area.

Communication is all about ensuring that people are kept informed of what’s happening during the introduction of Copilots. This includes communicating and recommunicating the risks, benefits, and impact of Copilot use. Hence, communication helps to deliver against a critical organizational change management tenet – helping people to appreciate the “What’s in it for me?”.

3. Organizational change management – employee support

Employee support is another area that can be considered to blur with others within organizational change management. After all, organizational change management is all about employee support. For example, the engagement area might highlight employees’ fears about introducing AI, such as the inability to speak with a human or job losses. The ability to share concerns and visibly address issues is a crucial enabler of individual and group resistance to change minimization.

4. Organizational change management – change impact analysis and risk management

Change impact analysis and risk assessment should start at the outset of Copilot introduction. Some of this work will be undertaken at the business case stage (if one is required) and more will happen as part of the people engagement.

Early insights will feed into both engagement and communication. For example, answers can be created to predictable questions to help ensure that business stakeholders aren’t unnecessarily concerned about how Copilots will impact their work and, potentially, job security.

Mitigation measures can be created for high-probability risks, such as people not initially wanting to change from the status quo or to work with Copilots. These mitigation measures will help to reduce any delays that result.

5. Organizational change management – training

The vital thing to recognize with Copilot-related training is that, for many people, the training doesn’t need to focus on technology; instead, it should cover the changes to the traditional ways of working. A good example is the introduction of virtual agents (or chatbots), which requires both end-users and IT support staff to appreciate the changes Copilots will make to the existing process. If you’re confused about why IT support staff need chatbot-related training, it’s because if a Copilot engagement can’t help with an end-user need, the end-user will need to be passed to a human agent as seamlessly as possible – with minimal wait time, the human agent already knowing what has gone before, and other elements that help to ensure a good end-user experience.

How are you preparing your people for Copilot adoption? Let me know in the comments!