What are the most effective ways to automate IT service delivery?

1 Identify your automation goals

Before you start automating, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and why. Do you want to speed up the delivery of software updates, reduce the number of incidents, or improve the compliance of your IT processes? Define your automation goals and align them with your business objectives and customer needs. This will help you prioritize your automation efforts and measure your progress.

2 Choose the right tools and platforms

There are many tools and platforms available for automating IT service delivery, such as configuration management, orchestration, scripting, workflow automation, and cloud services. However, not all of them are suitable for your specific needs and context. You need to evaluate the features, benefits, and drawbacks of each option and select the ones that match your automation goals, IT infrastructure, budget, and skills. You also need to ensure that your tools and platforms are compatible and integrated with each other and with your existing IT systems.

3 Design and implement your automation workflows

Once you have your tools and platforms in place, you need to design and implement your automation workflows. These are the sequences of steps and actions that your tools and platforms perform to automate a specific IT service delivery task, such as deploying a new version of an application, provisioning a new server, or resolving an incident. You need to map out your automation workflows in detail, specifying the inputs, outputs, triggers, conditions, and exceptions for each step. You also need to test and validate your automation workflows before deploying them in production.

4 Monitor and optimize your automation performance

After you deploy your automation workflows, you need to monitor and optimize their performance. You need to collect and analyze data on the efficiency, quality, and effectiveness of your automation workflows, such as the time, cost, and resources saved, the errors and failures avoided, and the customer satisfaction and feedback improved. You also need to identify and address any issues or gaps in your automation workflows, such as bottlenecks, errors, or inconsistencies. You also need to update and improve your automation workflows as your IT service delivery requirements and environment change.

5 Engage and train your IT staff

Finally, you need to engage and train your IT staff on your automation initiatives. Automation does not mean replacing your IT staff, but rather empowering them to focus on more strategic, creative, and value-added tasks. You need to communicate the benefits and challenges of automation to your IT staff and involve them in the planning, design, implementation, and optimization of your automation workflows. You also need to provide them with the necessary training and support to use your tools and platforms effectively and to adapt to the new IT service delivery roles and processes.

By following these best practices, you can automate IT service delivery in a way that enhances your IT performance, quality, and customer satisfaction.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?