How do I chose my next ITSM Application ? (If you dont have one) - Part 1

Industry stalwarts and bigwigs will say, go with the Best vendor in the market. But there are so many options to choose from and Industry leader is so focussed on making money via services, where organizations are having tough time maintaining their bills and Technology together and IT has been tasked with keeping everyone happy, which is impossible to do. Like my favorite JRR Tolkien wrote “One ring to rule them all”

But whenever I meet prospective clients, the actual users are so shunned out and decisions are mostly done on Business level. No one talks or gets feedback from the end user or the Administrator, who is going to be using the system full time and at the end poor fellow ends up customizing the application to their business needs and when things are not in the tool, either the Tech has to do by themselves or Professional services, for which again the poor tech is blamed. Its a vicious circle. 

Decisions taken to save cost will become a headache for the stakeholders in the long run. Always ensure that the real champions of the tool are involved in decision making. When I refer to champions, they are the IT Admins - Functional Groups & Technology group heads. Involve them in the decision making, at least on the Technical front. 

Now, lets see what our champions have to look for ?

"Lets make ITIL great again"

I’ve been involved in so many demos and meetings, whenever I mention that ITIL/ITSM must be the core focus for the Business in the next few years, I get a sigh - Its too time consuming, Its expensive. We cannot spend time or effort now. 

What they don’t understand is, I agree its a pain now, but in the long run, its going to be a game changer for the Business. Your IT will align towards Business goals. God, its so hard to convince the IT Directors, who do not want to focus on this. I agree to their point too. There are so many ITIL bashings and a negative campaign, saying, ITIL is not a compliance or Its just a framework - why focus on something which will go obsolete. But the real point is, Technology is always evolving. Its ITIL today, COBIT tomorrow, so never say NO to Technology.

Look at What Technology is being offered today and what will be the long term roadmap of the tool. You don’t have to know the definite features the tool plans on offering, but the idea where the organization is going and will the tool cater to that in the long run.

What do your users want ?

Organizations are so focussed on solving Tickets, that they forget the end user is a human being with a real world issue or fault. 

Please, please & please - Never treat your end user, as another Ticket. They are humans too and due to no fault of theirs, something went wrong in their device and treat them in a more humane way. 

Give them a tool, which is intuitive and easy for them to use. Make sure the UI/UX is really good and configurable to your own needs. Give them a feeling, its their own tool and not an outsourced helpdesk or IT is forcing them to use a tool from the 80s. 

Yes, there will be reluctance from your users to switch between tools/pages and get their answers. Look at introducing a good experience. How about single sign on with your AD or maybe add the Helpdesk widget to the intranet forums, so users can work from same website. Nowadays, organizations look at intranet tools like Yammer or Facebook for Workplace. Look at a tool which integrates with such tools and this will ensure your users are accessing the helpdesk in an easier way.

I always ask customers for their intranet pages and look at innovative ways to bring in traffic to the Helpdesk portal from these intranet pages. Its much easier and helpful to the users, this way

Businesses do not end with IT alone

I never understood what crimes other departments like “Facility” , “HR”, “Payroll” or “Accounting” committed, because whenever yearly budgets are allocated for acquisition of new tools, IT gets the first say, other departments have to stick with what remains from the IT budget or IT is tasked to make the tool to cater for these teams too. Why ?

Why can’t the teams look for 1 tool which can cater for departments, without burning a hole in the pockets. 

Yes, definitely there are tools which can help departments in individually, but look at a tool that can cater for ESM use cases too. One of the main reasons is the inter-departmental usage. Look at something where agents from different teams can communicate with each other, which leads to my next point

Collaboration is the name of the game

Gone are the days, when Teams or Agents used to work in silos. Had no clue what was happening within teams or department and every time there had to be an update, Emails will fly between Team leads or Managers, then updates will be shared to Teams, finally coming to a conclusion about an Outage or system wide shutdown. We live in the Twitter/Facebook/WhatsApp world and such information should be collaborative and in realtime.

Look at a tool, which offers such easy collaboration between Agents. It can be an in-built chat or in-app contextual data sharing. 

Invest heavily to research for such a tool, I assure you, it will be great time saver and save you from a lot of trouble

Mobile is a "WANT" and "NOT A NEED"

Whenever we go shopping, there is a question - Do I need it or want it ? Same is the question, when it comes to IT. 

Do you really need this tool or Does the IT want this tool ?

But in todays world, a Mobile App is a MUST and, this is not only with respect to Agents, but also for Users. Why should the end user be left alone ? "They too deserve" nay “Have the right” a better experience. So don’t settle for the “BS” by the vendor saying, "we have a Web based portal for Agents or End users. Why give an extra App for the end users and confuse them”. Thats one of the biggest Bull crap, someone can feed you, smell it from a miles away. Make sure the tool supports a full fledged Web 2.0 mobile app with Push notifications to end users, else its a BIG NO NO