Many organizations that decide to implement or improve IT service management (ITSM) fail in one way or another. In most cases, failure is caused by a combination of the reasons mentioned below. Let us compare an ITSM implementation project to building a house. No one in their right mind would start building a house without: a proper design and foundation of the house; a right working order; clear definitions of responsibilities for (sub) contractors; the sort and quality of the materials used; skilled and competent people to build the house; meeting building codes and environmental rules and regulations. Nevertheless, many organizations start their ITSM project without a proper basis and building plan.

Reasons for failure ITSM projects

There can be many reasons for failure, such as:

  • lack of management commitment
  • too ambitious, or badly defined goals
  • a process only or technology only focus
  • misalignment between organization (structure) and processes
  • resistance to change in the organization
  • accountabilities and responsibilities are not clear or missing
  • staff that are unaware of their new roles
  • staff that lack the necessary competences and skills.

Essential aspects delivering ITSM

The book is set up to help you make that plan, and to guide you in implementing ITSM. It covers those aspects that we think are essential to deliver an ITSM building:

  • designing and developing the organization
  • the essential process steps and activities
  • role definitions, responsibilities, skills and competences
  • accountability and authority
  • governance
  • the human factor.

This book combines these building blocks of the ITSM plan in a reference model and explains them in detail in section 1.3. As the book title and listing above suggests, a lot of our attention is people-related. This is not without reason: people execute and control process activities, people deliver products and services and people communicate about products and services. So how come people often are not in the center of attention when it comes to ITSM projects? Is it because we rather deal with technology aspects? This book will help to fill this gap, both in practice and in literature.