IT service management (ITSM) is constantly evolving, with new applications and technologies emerging every year. However, with increased pressure to improve the end-user experience and overcome staffing shortages, how can IT leaders ensure their program is evolving in the right direction?
The ITSM maturity model offers a set of guidelines to assess and improve your program – and this article explores exactly how it does that.
Expect to learn:
- How the ITSM maturity model works
- Why so many leaders use it as their primary benchmark for improving their program
- What you can do to reach the highest level of maturity
What is the ITSM Maturity Model?
The ITSM maturity model evaluates an organization’s service management program across three core factors:
- Collaboration: Are there processes and protocols in place to enable timely communication and seamless collaboration on IT service tasks?
- Automation and Tools: Has the department adopted automation and data analytics tools to accelerate service and enable continuous improvements to the program?
- Processes: Are there reliable processes in place to optimize performance, mitigate risk and ensure the ITSM program is as cost-efficient as possible?
In combination, the “maturity” of these factors indicates the overall efficacy of the ITSM program.
Three Benefits of the ITSM Maturity Model
While the model provides leaders with insight into their existing program’s effectiveness, its real value is derived from how it makes that assessment. Rather than simply showing leaders where their program sits in relation to their peers, the model provides:
1. Clear Guidance to Improve Your Program
Many ITSM leaders struggle to know where to focus their efforts, especially given the number of new technologies that have emerged in recent years. But the ITSM maturity model helps them identify and focus on the factors that will make the biggest difference.
It presents distinct “levels” of maturity, illustrated perfectly by the following chart:
An ITSM leader can simply look at this chart and see how the next “Level” differs from their current system. For example, to move from Level 1 to Level 2, you need to:
- Expand shared decision-making and introduce shared accountability
- Centralize your automation around a core app or IT infrastructure
- Standardize your ITSM processes
This makes it easier for leaders to allocate resources and cut through the noise of common ITSM fads – enabling continuous improvements without the time-consuming process of figuring out what needs to be improved.
2. Change Management Made Simpler
Rapid change can cause major disruptions for IT systems and their users; this is the reason change management is so important. Many leaders may be tempted to rush straight from having zero automation to implementing complex self-service systems – but their end-users would likely be overwhelmed by this sudden transformation.
The ITSM maturity model helps minimize disruptions and make change management simpler by encouraging leaders to expand their programs over time. This makes each transition smoother and ensures your infrastructure, employees and end-users are all prepared for each new phase of the evolution.
3. Built-In Adaptability for the FuturE
Every ITSM leader knows that priorities shift over time. The number of IT organizations focused on AI implementation has increased by 16 percentage points in the last year alone; similar changes should be expected as new technologies emerge and organizational needs evolve. But this creates a problem when developing your ITSM program: how can you ensure the system is agile enough to adapt?
The ITSM maturity model is built around the need to adapt to future trends. In fact, the highest level of maturity – known as the “Value” stage – is not considered an “endpoint.” Instead, it represents the point at which an ITSM program has the people, processes and technology in place to continue evolving and make the most of future innovations.
3 Ways to Increase Your ITSM Maturity
The maturity model presents a series of actionable steps, but it also indicates a handful of important principles that will help any ITSM leader improve their program:
1. Streamline Your Systems
Many IT departments approach digital transformation through the lens of expansion: how can we introduce more applications and internal systems to support our end-users? But this leads to a fragmented approach that produces:
- Increased complexity for ITSM management
- A lack of visibility into the costs and output of each system
- A limited capacity to apply new technologies and automation across the entire program
The ITSM maturity model points leaders in a different direction: toward increased centralization and simplification of the system. Greater maturity involves more services, yes, but also more interoperability and efficiency – which ultimately means a more streamlined ITSM program.
The takeaway? Programs at any level of maturity can be improved through a focus on consolidation. That is why we developed DeskDirector, which is an all-in-one ticketing system that enables organizations to access a range of tools using a single platform.
2. Centralize Documentation
Many ITSM programs have extensive documentation to formalize processes and establish official protocols. But the maturity model demonstrates the value of centralized documentation for a couple of reasons:- Improved Collaboration: Without centralized documentation, techs struggle to share knowledge while maintaining individual self-sufficiency.
- Standardized Processes: Official processes cannot be routinely followed by all parties unless they have access to clear documentation of the processes.
As a result, centralized documentation is key to reaching a higher maturity level.
3. Increase Data Usability
Each level of ITSM maturity places a greater emphasis on centralized data and analytics capabilities. But actually enabling your teams to increase visibility and access data-driven insights is not just a question of having the data – it is also about making it fast and easy to use.Many ITSM dashboards and analytics capabilities are difficult to navigate, meaning techs spend too much time making sense of data or searching for relevant data. Leaders should, therefore, focus on making their data easier to access, analyze and leverage – which is exactly what DeskDirector helps you do.
Reach the Next Level of ITSM Maturity with DeskDirector
DeskDirector is an all-in-one ticketing system that empowers ITSM organizations to:
- Improve Automation: Leverage custom automation to streamline ticketing workflows and improve communication with end-users.
- Enhance Analytics: Integrate with Microsoft BI to make powerful insights about your entire ITSM ecosystem easily available.
- Streamline processes: From embedding SOPs directly within tickets to powering self-service IT support hubs, our platform helps you centralize and streamline your ITSM program.
The net result? Our users resolve tickets 4x faster and increase ticketing adoption by 20%.
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