Choosing the right ITSM tool
Ask the right questions
A customer asked me to evaluate and choose an ITSM system for them. Their requirements were simple; “It’s got to be good and simple to use”. Now there are many connotations to “good and simple” and what is “good and simple” for one organisation is not necessarily good for another; think different ways of working and organisational structure. However there has to be a set of ground rules which can be applied which will draw out, identify, and meet, OOTB, 80% or more of the customer’s requirements and the rest through intuitive no code configuration.
Remember there are only 3 main use cases that an ITSM tool needs to be able to handle – I have a problem, I need something, and I need to know what is happening with the requests I have logged. Here is my short list questions I take with me when evaluating an ITSM system.
1) How long will the implementation take? If the answer is more than 40 days then ask why, and If they cannot explain and justify their approach then move onto the next vendor.
Most of the answers I have received talk about the additional need to configure the embedded processes based on the customer’s custom requirements. My response was another “WHY?” Surely the overall processes configured into the tool follow good practice and align to a framework such as ITIL? There will always be the case made for change management which apparently every company likes to think is unique to them; it’s not. The question here is about the ability to implement standard industry accepted processes, and to be confident that the customer will accept this “good” practice, and not to set about recreating the wheel. How many times have you sat down with process leads and managers sitting through multiple workshops walking through one process after another and creating a raft of documentation which no one reads! Save that time for training and adoption activities.
2) What capability is there for workflow automation should the customer need to tweak the workflows, not redesign processes, tweak? Most of the implementation effort, other than turning on the instance, should be on finetuning the existing workflows and automating them as needed. An intuitive workflow modelling tool, that requires no coding expertise and that links to all the objects and services needed, to allow drag and drop is a must.
3) What integrations and extensions are available? Check the marketplace to see what is on offer. Can the system be linked into MS Teams, for example? Can it send and sync tickets with Jira if you need to manage development activities? How are simple tasks and work schedules handled? Does it have a CMDB or a connector to one? Where does it get its Asset & Licence information from?
4) Accessibility: What channels are there for the end user to interact with the system? How do they raise an incident, a request – is there a self service portal? Is there a chatbot and how well has it been taught? – and how do they have visibility into what they have logged or requested in the system? And the support teams; how easy is for them to know what they have to focus on, to share knowledge and be part of a synchronised resolver group?
5) Reporting: What standard reports are there OOTB? Many vendors provide their own preferred tool for reporting and they will also have a set of reports for each of the areas in the system, but in most cases the customer will have their own requirements, different views that need to be created for the different levels within the organisation. What capability is provided for customised reporting? Are there APIs to 3rd party BI and reporting systems?
6) Is there a Community for interacting with other users of the system, to raise questions and to tap into existing knowledge and experience? How widely is that used? Log into these before making a final choice; users tend to be vocal when things are good or bad and this a great way to gauge just how well received the system is and determine how well the vendor responds to the posts.
7) Security and compliance: How is data integrity and privacy assured? What types of audit trails and logs are available in the system?
Clearly there are other more detailed and focused questions beneath these questions, but this set provides a guideline to ferret out the essential capabilities that an ITSM should be offering.
Going back to my customer: the system I choose was one that was quick to stand up (less than 40 days), provided satisfactory answers to all of the above (had all of the essential features and capabilities to satisfy my customer’s needs) and required minimal configuration and very little training; perhaps you can guess which one it was?