The way that best practice is delivered and shared is flawed, and so Back2ITSM should be welcomed by the industry. However, in our eagerness to find answers from our peers, are we ignoring a resource much closer to home that can teach us exactly what the business needs - and what is causing service delivery failures.
The Back2ITSM initiative is excellent because it attempts to tackle the biggest problem with ITSM ‘best practice’ - namely it has historically led to the creation of a single, definitive version of the right way to do things. For too long, we have accepted this idea, despite the complexity of IT and the nuances of each business telling us the blanket approach to ‘best practice’ cannot possibly apply to all of us.
Therefore, the idea of encouraging a more collaborative way of learning, in which businesses help each other solve common problems, should be applauded. However, there are hurdles to overcome for Back2ITSM to succeed. Firstly, it must avoid the very problem it aims to address, i.e. becoming a document sharing exercise (to be fair, Stephen Mann and his ITSMWPROW colleagues have clearly stated their intentions to avoid this pitfall on the podcast.) The even greater challenge will be fostering natural information sharing. After all, isn’t the promise of learning from your peers one of the prime reasons why people join organisations such as the itSMF and SDI? Why, given the existence and membership numbers of these bodies, are ITSM professionals still trying to fix problems from scratch rather than finding a solution from another IT team?
You could point the finger of blame at the industry bodies, and you could certainly argue the huge influence of ITIL has been responsible for stifling education in recent years. However, is the problem more of a culturally ingrained IT industry defect? IT departments are fiercely independent and protective of their unique skills meaning they are unlikely to give up their knowledge freely.
IT is clearly trying to shake-off this insular attitude, but it will take some time before the problem is consigned to history. However, there is an easier way for IT teams to create best practice suitable for them, without even leaving the building. One of the advantages we have when helping our customers is that we are one step removed from the front-line challenges. Yes, our experience allows us to understand these challenges and we are able to make suggestions based on work we have done for others. However, the most important observation is that often service desks ignore the one resource that will help them improve: their front line staff.
The service desk operative role continues to be the starting point for a career in IT. Naturally, because the staff populating it are often young and inexperienced, we overlook their contribution. Once the best front line staff gain promotion and move up to second line and project work, they put their call handling experiences behind them. Yet front line staff, regardless of their experience levels and knowledge, are the ones who directly witness the impact of SLAs over-running, bear the brunt of disquiet when services fail, and hear how frustrated customers are by a broken process. In other words, ‘lowly’ service desk staff are a mine of information about what ‘best practice’ really needs to deliver to your business (also, don’t underestimate the advantage that a lack of technical knowledge brings, these individuals will empathise with your customers better than you when something doesn’t work - they don’t get bogged down worrying why it doesn’t work).
The message is clear. Yes, you should be trying to learn from other businesses and experts, and yes Back2ITSM is a refreshing take on a universal problem. However, don’t ignore the resources you already have because your front line staff can tell you what services work and what cause frustration. Crucially, they can probably point to the broken processes that are causing most of the pain, without resorting to complex reports, user surveys or by trying to learn from other service desks.
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