How can IT service desk teams leverage data and analytics to optimize their workflows and decision making?

Selecting the right ITSM tool set will help the team to visualize the data and be able to make decisions in a more informed way.

- Start from "Current State" and then can go from there on identifying and prioritizing issues aligned with business requirement - To be able to leverage data in best possible way, need to choose best possible, cost effective ITSM tool/s for better visibility, enabling faster decision making

Okay, I may be old fashion, but though I agree you can use Data & Analytics to identify and prioritize, BUT wouldn't it be better to get this directly from the your internal customers? and THEN use your data to root cause the issue. So, start with actual people, then use Data & Analytics to measure, monitor and understand root causes of issues.

Agreed on this one, but expand! On any team I get involved with I look at the tasks to: Eliminate, Delegate or Automate. Eliminate - You would be amazed how many tasks are done way past their purpose. My Favorite example is a lined report that printed every day on the production floor for the schedulers. Problem was the schedulers converted to a more automated system a decade before I even got to the company. Somebody kept adding paper ... every day, and someone else kept throwing the report out ... every day. Delegate - Should the help desk be doing it? This could be self-service (like in Password Resets) Automate - Anything left should targeted to be automated. If it needs to be done, can't be someone else, let's automate it!

In my experience 2 of the best contributions to automation of process are: Simplification- making process simple as possible will allow for less stages in the process. Standardisation- by creating standards in the processes leads to re-use of process and drives effective automation. Knowledge management is key too, having good knowledge articles will allow for users to self help and provide lev 0 resolution

Automation is such an important part of business optimization but each automation you create is another mouth to be fed (thing to support and maintain). For me, an important part (really a prerequisite) of automation is first stepping back and asking "does this even need to be done?" Automation is amazing but the first step in my opinion is "deletion". Don't automate something that in reality doesn't add value to your business. That is just as, if not more, wasteful.

Create logic in ITSM tools to direct tickets to the right priorities and portfolio and line of support. Leverage API automation between tooling systems (from channel to group) instead of using an email or manual intervention. Apply zero touch operations at every manual touch point in the customer ticket journey.

I think you should open things up and make most of the business metrics available to the team. However, give team members only what they need to do their jobs while they are working, so they don't get distracted by metrics that don't matter to them at that point in time. If giving someone access to a datapoint can help them either get their job done faster or easier, OR, if the datapoint gives them context for the work they are doing, find a way to get it in front of them when they need it. Don't hide it in a dashboard, see if you can get it on the records they are working in so it is there as information to help them do their work. If they can't find it easily, they won't use it, and all that work of compiling it goes out the window.

Challenge here, in my opinion is to provide relevant information on a needed basis and not fall into the trap of "overcommunication is better than no communication". Key stakeholders need to be informed and be part of the solution, for sure.

A great example of this is issue tracking. You’re able to see how many users are experiencing the same issue, how often, and how it has been resolved thus far. This allows for it to be analyzed and for an optimal solution to be found and implemented, whether that be preventing the issue from occurring at all or coming up with the best steps for the IT Support team to follow.