Service Desk Managers: 5 Key ITSM Things to Do in 2020

If you can still remember last year, then hopefully you’ll remember my A-Z of ITSM in 2020 blog in which I covered 26 of the most important areas for IT service management (ITSM) professionals to focus on this year. Well, guess what? There’s more to share. This time I’m taking some of those 26 points – such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation – and providing 5 practical tips for IT service desk managers. The tips aren’t prioritized, they’re simply in alphabetical order still as per my A-Z list.

This blog by @Joe_the_IT_Guy provides a set of practical tips for 2020 for #servicedesk managers. #ITSM Share on X

5 service desk manager tips

1 – “AI and automation” tip

As a service desk manager you might be (rightly) concerned about the impact of new AI-enabled capabilities on your team and how they’re currently feeling about its impending introduction to IT service desk operations. The important points here are to first, appreciate that the introduction of AI (or machine learning) is inevitable. It’ll be everywhere before we know it, in both our personal and professional lives. Second, that the current wave of AI-enabled capabilities being introduced into ITSM tools are very much about the technology undertaking repetitive tasks and augmenting service desk analyst capabilities. They’re not replacing service desk roles and as such should be explained to staff as technology that will improve the work lives of everyone.

So, ensure that this is communicated to staff, along with how any changes will impact the work they do and the skills they need in an AI-enabled world. Failing to do so will be a classic organizational change management mistake (please see the letter O in my original A-Z or, alternatively, read my What’s Organizational Change Management and Why Should ITSM Pros Be Bothered? blog).

2 – “Employee experience” tip

There’s no doubt that over the last five years the need for improving the employee experience has increased dramatically. Such that it’s now one of the top areas of interest in the ITSM community. This is great. But what does it mean for service desk managers and their teams? My tip here is to understand what employee experience really is, in part thanks to the work of a Finnish company called Happy Signals and, more recently, Forrester Research. To quote Forrester first:

“Psychological research shows that the most important factor for employee experience is being able to make progress every day toward the work that they believe is most important.”

So, it’s about removing friction and increasing employee productivity. This is echoed by the findings of Happy Signal’s “product development” work with its customers over the last five years, with employee experience being measured in terms of employee happiness and employee lost work time, i.e. productivity. So, understand what employee experience really means for your IT service desk and the people who are serving and supporting your organization’s employees. Next, start to introduce capabilities to initially measure and then to improve upon your IT service desk’s employee experience.

In 2020 #servicedesk managers need to understand what employee experience really means for your IT service desk and the people who are serving & supporting your org’s employees, says @Joe_the_IT_Guy. Share on X

3 – “Guidance beyond ITIL/ITIL 4” tip

OK, so this is a bit of cheat on my part by combining the letters G and I from my original A-Z list. First, the 2019 release of ITIL 4 (and the further releases of best practice content in early 2020) has done wonders for its credibility in the modern IT world. There’s already much for service desk managers to learn and apply in just the ITIL 4 Foundation publication, let alone the more detailed ITIL 4 content. So, ensure that you at least read up on the new ITIL service value system and the service value chain within it. IT organizations have spent the last decade talking about “value” and, in my opinion, not done enough to understand and change what ITSM and IT service desks do to “co-create value” (it’s an ITIL 4 term).

Then having said this, while I’m very pleased with how ITIL 4 has turned out so far – you could say that I’m a fan – ITIL is not the only body of ITSM and IT service desk best practice out there. So, aim to also look beyond ITIL in 2020 to see if there’s anything else that could be blended into your service desk practices to help improve its performance and outcomes. To help, I wrote a Main Bodies of ITSM Best Practice Guidance blog (which includes COBIT, IT4IT, VeriSM, and ISO 20000) along with one specifically on the lesser-known FitSM: The Lightweight ITSM Standard if you fancy fairly quick reads around the alternatives.

IT orgs have spent the last decade talking about “value” & not done enough to understand & change what #ITSM and IT #servicedesks do to “co-create value,” says @Joe_the_IT_Guy Share on X

4 – “Key performance indicators (KPIs)” tip

With all the change that’s required in 2020, it would be easy to forget about the impact these changes will have on your IT service desk’s current metrics and KPIs. Before giving examples, however, I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that your existing metrics might already be in need of review (and any associated changes) even before we get to the impact of 2020. So, what do you need to look out for and potentially address, metrics-wise, in 2020? For me, the most obvious area of change relates to the increased level of automation and AI that will be employed in 2020. This, while great for everyone with the technology doing much of the “heavy lifting” for repetitive tasks, alters the work that service desk analysts will be handling and therefore the measures and targets that are now applicable to them. Think about it – if the technology is removing many of the simple issues and requests hitting your IT service desk, then your analysts will be handling the more complicated and time-consuming stuff. Hence, metrics such as the average handling time and the first-time fix rate, and the targets, will definitely need to be reviewed. Plus, from an improvement perspective, you might also want to measure the level of issues and requests hitting the service desk that could/should have been resolved using automation.

What do you need to look out for and potentially address, metrics-wise, in 2020? @Joe_the_IT_Guy shares his views in this blog. #servicedesk #ITSM Share on X

5 – “Wellbeing” tip

In some ways, this tip carries on from the previous one. On the one hand, AI and automation will remove much of the volume-based pressure on your IT service desks and its analysts. However, on the other, the average task being undertaken by your analysts will be more complicated and more time-consuming, with few of the simple IT support jobs (that allow a little mental “free-wheeling”) still available because the technology is now doing them.

So, be cognizant as to how the new work profile (caused by AI and automation), and the associated demands, will impact service desk agent wellbeing. Especially given the early-2019 state of IT professional wellbeing identified in the SysAid Future of ITSM Survey. This reported that 84% of respondents think that working in IT will get harder over the next three years; that only one-quarter of respondents feel that their efforts and value are sufficiently recognized by management versus the 72% of respondents who feel “undervalued” to some extent; and that just over half of the respondents feel that working in IT is adversely affecting their personal wellbeing.

In 2020 you need to be cognizant as to how the new work profile (caused by #AI & #automation), & the associated demands, will impact #servicedesk agent #wellbeing, says @Joe_the_IT_Guy. Share on X

So, that’s my list of 5 tips for service desk managers in 2020. I could have probably written twice as many but, instead, what would you add to the above? Please let me know in the comments.