SITS15: Who Said Some Good Stuff at the ITSM Conference?

The ITSM Show (formerly known as the Service Desk and IT Support Show, SITS) is done and dusted for another year – congratulations to Toby Moore and his colleagues on a very well organized and delivered IT service management (ITSM) event.

We are all hopefully back at work now but what did we learn? Or for those that didn’t attend did they learn anything from the event’s Twitter stream (#SITS15)? I hope we and they did, but just in case I have pulled together some sage advice from the sessions I attended and the Twitter stream.

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So What Did I Learn (Or Think Was Valuable to Others)?

On Service Desks

• “You are NOT the break/fix center, you have to take a strategic view.” – @jarodgreene
• “Some people want the EasyJet of Service Desks. Some want BA. Know your customer expectations & what you can deliver.” ­ – @stephenmann
• “Your service desk should challenge your customer’s expectations. Otherwise you’ll never innovate at the rate you need to.” – @patb0512
• “67% of service desks spend their time firefighting incidents. Even actual fire fighters don’t spend that long on it!” –­ @GBaylisHall
• “Only 17% of IT issues actually make it to the Service Desk.” –­_­ @stephenmann (stat via Forrester Research)
• “None of the vendors at #sits15 are the leaders of ITSM. Google is the number 1 tool used to solve IT issues!” –­_­ @stephenmann
• “Outsourcing your service desk disconnects vital business users from the most vital business service” – @stephenmann
•  “If you don’t get the service desk right, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your IT department is.” ­– @GBaylisHall
• “50% of the people you hire to your service desk will likely leave within 2 years.” – @GBaylisHall

On the Changing Expectations of Corporate IT

• “What a 14 year old can do with IT vs. what corporate IT can do.” – @VigilantGuy
  
• “Never assume that technology is enough to deliver against service expectations.” ­– @sarahlahav
• “Be aware employees will make comparisons between corporate IT experiences with their personal experience.” – @stephenmann
• “Many IT orgs miss out on improvement opportunities by not looking outside of their IT ecosystem.” – @sarahlahav
• “Stop thinking about IT first. Start investing in new technology to create more (& new) business value.” – @patb0512
• “If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.” – @patb0512
• “It’s quite easy to set user expectations. Just communicate with them!” – @AndieKis
• “Companies tend to reject innovation as they’re tied up with their customers’ immediate needs.” – @IanAitchison
• “People buy based on the services but stay with a supplier because of the service.” – @sarahlahav
• “IT is not a function. It’s a capability.” – @stephenmann

On Using ITSM Outside IT (Enterprise Service Management, ESM)

• “Don’t use #ITIL language with other departments when it comes to #ESM.” –­­­ @VigilantGuy
• “Don’t try & sell #ESM as an IT strategy. It’s a business strategy. Talk in IT terms & you likely won’t succeed.” ­– @stephenmann
• “IT don’t want to talk to humans. HR don’t want to touch technology. And finance? Well they just don’t give a sh!t (no budget!)” – a great barriers to ESM quote from an audience member
• “#ESM is sold by communication, delivered by communication , supported by communication not by #ITSM value prop.” – @gobbymidget
• When speaking with other lines of business… “Ditch the term Enterprise Service Management. Just simply call it ‘a better way of doing things.” – @stephenmann
• “IT shouldn’t just try & sell technology to the business (ESM). Sell your expertise, your knowledge & lessons learned.” ­– @stephenmann

On Improving IT and Performance

• “Don’t just let an #ITSM vendor sell you a tool. Get their help with people & process issues. They have experience to help you.” – unknown
• “People, attitude and governance need to be sorted out before processes will work.” – @barclayrae
• “How many of you understand the journey your users go on with your service desk? Their service journey? START HERE.” – @patb0512
• “DevOps isn’t about just Dev and Ops. Must involve the whole community.” – @marksmalley
• “Principles and values are more important than processes devops.” – @barclayrae
• “You have to take several steps with configuration management before you can show real value to the business.” – @NybergTobias
• “The perfect configuration manager is a little bit butler, a little bit engineer, a little bit used car salesman, with a dash of politician.” –  @NybergTobias
• “Knowledge management isn’t just about writing documents. And your IT team shouldn’t be the source of all your knowledge.” – @patb0512

Stuart Rance’s Session in Particular Had a Lot of Buzz

It’s also worth shouting about the fact that Stuart Rance was named “ITSM Contributor of the Year” at SITS.

“#sits15 event manager @tobyonsushi presents @StuartRance with his #ITSM Contributor of the Year award. Well done!”

Sadly I didn’t attend his session on “We Don’t Do People” but have still curated a number of interesting tweets for you:

• “Talk less, listen more and storytelling.” …. Nailed it in the first 2 minutes
• “Don’t do what you have been told to do, when it’s the wrong thing to do.”
• “Let your staff know that they can do what they need to for customer. Ignore the process when it is okay to ignore it.”
• “IT organisations need to teach their people intelligent disobedience.”
• “Recruit appropriately. For behaviours not tech. Then monitor and reward to drive appropriate behavior.”
• “Involve the customer in process design since almost every process is aimed at customer experience.”
• “Caring about customers and putting them ahead of all else absolutely needs leadership from the very top.”

Further insights on this topic can be seen on Stuart’s recent blog.

Additional Advice for Those Working on a Service Desk

AT SITS we asked a few ITSM industry authorities and presenters “What is your top tip for someone working on a service desk?”. Watch the short video below to hear the gems we caught on camera.

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I hope you have found my curated tweets of interest and feel free to share your favorite tweets as comments below.

You can see more curated #SITS15 Tweets in Toby Moore’s Storify.

Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter, Google+, or Facebook where we are always listening.