Human-centered IT service management: The next great differentiator

Positive employee and customer experiences are critical to business growth and digital transformation success. But, such experiences require revamping how organizations structure, deliver, and measure IT services. That’s why human-centered IT service management is growing in popularity for companies that want to innovate IT and gain a competitive advantage.

Here are some insights for IT leaders who may be hesitant to take the leap into human-centered ITSM.

What is human-centered IT service management?

Human-centered ITSM is about putting technology in the service of humans. Traditionally, IT departments worked by implementing and deploying technology because IT liked it—not because people wanted it or needed it. In fact, they may have needed it or wanted it, but no one asked them.

Now, technology absolutely has to be in the service of these people, not the other way around. This is where automation comes in—automating all the mundane, repeatable, error-prone tasks that, frankly, no one wants to do anyway.

The next great differentiator for enterprises

Generally, IT technology processes have been in place to enable and protect IT—not to enhance the business. Now, IT service management can provide competitive advantage when it’s focused not on stifling business innovation, but on becoming the enabler, allowing people to work seamlessly and frictionlessly.

For example, the change management process used to be very structured and slow, but now the idea is for people to collaborate in real time, always on, whenever they want. What we’re doing at ServiceNow is putting people at the heart of every process. We’re allowing the data to do the things and automate the things in the background that would traditionally be handled by people.

We’re living in a pandemic world. We’re doing stuff faster. Things have to change more quickly than ever before. We have to be more agile. We’re allowing people to share and collaborate and become an integral part of the process, without calling it an IT process. Enterprise IT leaders need to move toward thinking about how people interact with things and to speak to people constantly. It’s not really a technology conversation anymore.

Prioritizing human-centered ITSM

Embracing human-centered ITSM isn’t actually about technology at all. ITSM technology alone won’t transform a business. What it will do is protect and mitigate some risk and add a bit of engagement to customer care. Processes within IT service management must broaden and become enterprise-wide to provide the services the business needs.

It’s imperative that IT processes work the way people expect them to. Better processes are connected processes. Better processes are also simpler processes that take less time to interact with. The real differentiator is to have processes that allow people to get on with their tasks and work the best way possible—while still having processes that govern your business and are auditable.

The key to human-centered ITSM

Trust is currently an obstacle to adoption. In the past, IT departments haven’t been trusted because they often stifled business innovation or simply said no. They put up barriers because technology hadn’t been tested, and IT team members weren’t convinced solutions worked.

But, as IT teams elevate away from just being IT shops, they become the enablers and trusted advisers to the business. Think about how the CIO doesn’t just look out for service anymore. The CIO’s job includes negotiating, managing business relationships, managing vendors, and providing great experiences for all.

Similarly, IT has to change the way it does things and build trust quickly. Too often today, human resources, marketing, and other teams buy services without IT knowing about it. That’s not healthy for large organizations. Trust comes through transparency, openness, and communication.

Learn more about human-centered ITSM in our ebook, “The human experience of IT service management.”

Register for the April 7, 2021, ServiceNow webinar about human-centered IT service management.

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