ITSM process automation – The anti-hero?

Without proper automation, any robust process is prone to failures. Although this is true to a good extent, this has also lead the industry (of course, the IT Service one, if it can be called so!) to a situation where process that cannot be automated (at least 80% – a guess1) is not accepted!

Having played different roles in many Service Improvement projects for multiple customers across the globe , I’ve noticed this a while ago that customers always tend to tweak their processes around what could be done by the process automation software they have purchased.

Many of the industry leading IT Service Management Process Automation software (ITSM-Tools) vendors across the world have created their own practices based on the industry de-facto ITIL framework. They have marketed it so well that the customers believe that the ‘Tool Implementation Consultant’ (a techie who has come to customize the tool- and good at his job) always talks best practice process.

Many organizations do not want to spend much on process improvement /streamlining efforts, and would add this money to the budget for buying tools that has in-built process flows based on ‘best-practices’.

This is a pitiful situation where automation, which is supposed to increase an IT Organization’s efficiency and reduce manual errors (be a HERO), becomes a bottleneck for the effectiveness (to deliver the right output) of the same organization (becomes an ANTI-HERO).

More pitiful is the fact that the IT organization itself is the ‘ROOT CAUSE’ for creating this situation as it (more appropriately ‘individuals’) only looks at reducing the ‘process related burden’ with the introduction of ITSM Process Automation.

Is it that difficult to understand that we need Processes that could achieve the required outcomes and then think how do we make them more efficient and less error prone by introducing appropriate Automation?

Are we ourselves turning the IT Service Management Process Automation HEROs into ANTI-HEROs?