When embarking upon the effort of implementing an ITSM framework within your organization, centralize your focus on these three key areas: People, Process and Technology. Although it is perceived that the focus on these areas are often overemphasized in sales and marketing strategies, it is necessary to understand that it is not just the technology that contributes to a successful ITSM deployment, but the process of implementing it and the people involved as well.

I’ve seen many organizations purchase the latest and greatest tools and then attempt to retrofit their processes and organization to the out of the box functionality of that tool. The result is always the same, the engagement fails and the tool often winds up as “shelfware.”

It is only upon the assessment of each of these three areas – People, Process and Technology, in which a successful deployment of IT Service Management can be obtained.

People

Be sure when undertaking the assessment of “people” that you avoid the pitfall of only assessing the IT staff. A successful assessment needs to include the entire organizational structure as a whole. The ITSM mission and vision will fail unless it is embraced throughout all facets of the organization. In fact, an ITSM implementation often requires a culture change within the organization.

During the assessment of your personnel, the following entities should be included when assembling your ITSM support structure:

• Staff optimization (sizing)
• Staff capabilities (skillsets)
• Structure (appropriate support tiering)
• Communication channels
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Relationships between support structures

Process

Process and Procedures will need to be based on and aligned with ITIL Best Practices. The ITIL framework provides the best model for implementing structured, well defined, formalized processes. Ensure as well, that the processes are aligned with your organizations “business strategy.” The strategy should include the appropriate metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs) and service levels to allow for efficient maturity baselines and improvement targets.

The processes should be structured to impose the necessary controls for optimization, yet be flexible enough to adapt to additional growth within your organization, i.e. repeatable.

Technology

To tie it all together, only “Best-of-Breed” tools should be considered when implementing technology within your ITSM framework. Those tools should include components for the critical processes defined and deployed within your organization. If you implemented Incident, Problem, Change and Service Level Management processes, then your tool of choice should contain subsequent modules for each. Although it is possible to operate with multiple tools, it will often detract from your ability to obtain acceptable OLA and SLA targets due to the integration components or manual processes that may be necessary to implement.

The technology solutions considered should also possess the appropriate automation functionality that allows you to achieve the goals established within your processes. In addition, tools should contain the capabilities to synchronize to all other technology utilized by your organizations resources.