Day one of SDITS12 was a watershed moment for the UK ITSM industry, according to James West, with real change evident. So why was he in professional despair just 24 hours later?
I’ve been attending SDITS in its various incarnations for over ten years, long enough to remember the Touchpaper ice rink (yes really) and the live Blues Brothers performances on the FrontRange stand (yes really). Many of these events have blurred over the years, primarily because (whisper it quietly) not much changed in the industry. It may have been – and continue to be – an important entity within an IT support context, but talking about ITIL was never going to give you goose bumps was it?
I am therefore pleased to state with honesty that day one of SDITS12 was the best time I’ve ever had at the show. The atmosphere was cracking from the moment the breakfast briefing started at 0830, with the early morning debate encompassing the future of the service desk, social media and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).
Starting on a such a high, a drop-off was to be expected, but the buzz continued and remained there for the whole day. (James Finister echoed this sentiment to me late on day two, stating that previously the show started with a burst of optimistic enthusiasm which began to tail off after lunch, yet this year it maintained its pitch). The feeling was certainly helped by a knock-out session by Chris Dancy, which referenced the Matrix, Terminator, Smoking 2.0 (“I used to be a smoker, now I pretend to check my phone when I want five minutes peace”), and a series of stunning figures and observations which explained why the current explosion in technology adoption is just the beginning, and that the integration between humans and IT will utterly transform the working reality of all of us. It’s a great session (Cloud, Mobility and the Coming Singularity) if you ever get to see Chris deliver it live. I could sense half the audience thinking: ‘what’s this got to do with me’, and the other half beginning to panic as the enormity of what Chris explained hit them.
Next for me was conversation with the always engaging Kevin Kimber, UK country manager for ServiceNow, who explained that ITSM teams attempting to improve the end user experience should be aiming much higher - citing Amazon as setting the bar that must be met if internal IT departments are to remain relevant.
The conversations I had continued in the same vein, with those I spoke to keen to solve real world challenges, rather than the internally-obsessed ‘how do we improve this ITIL process’ talks I had become accustomed to. The day culminated with the Back2ITSM presentation, which showcased the launch of the initiative’s official website and introduced to the show audience its very difficult but worthy task of extracting from the industry the very best ideas and methods for solving ITSM challenges. Like everything that proceeded it, Back2ITSM is a breath of fresh air, a chance to re-evaluate the sources of ‘best practice’ we reference and create something more in keeping with the demands placed on IT today.
I left SDITS12 with belief that the industry really had began to change. The imperative of thinking about IT from the perspective of the customer seemed at this moment to finally have sunk in.
You may have noticed I stated earlier that ‘day one’ was the best time I had a SDITS. That wasn’t to say day two was bad – it wasn’t – but my mood was severely altered during the breakfast briefing. Regardless of the original topic, the majority of sessions I attended over the two days of SDITS invariably turned to BYOD and social media, underlining the fact that these are the two areas causing practitioners the most concern. The day two breakfast briefing was no exception, but for me represented the polar opposite of the progression mood I had witnessed during day one, with the willingness to experiment and find ways to adapt to emerging tech replaced by a sneering cynicism. This was best illustrated by a comment about social media: “what are we supposed to do – ‘like‘ an incident?” which raised an appreciative laugh and in the process summed up why the service desk is in crisis. The problem here is not questioning the value of social media in an IT support context – such a question is healthy – it’s that too many IT professionals still think that social media is about posting what you ate for breakfast (I was fortunate enough to be sat next to Hornbill’s Pat Bolger, who offered a simple solution for protecting corporate matters while using Twitter to log IT incidents that impressed me enough to write it up as a news story.)
The luddite IT professionals again showed their true colours when talking about BYOD, questioning whether they should offer support for equipment procured by users. This was the point that really fired me up. When did the IT department become so arrogant that it dictated what technology people can use? As I tweeted at the time, surely IT works for the end-users, and not the other way round? At this moment I realised that for many organisations, all the talk of treating end-users like paying customers has been empty rhetoric. I will be writing a follow up article on these topics soon. A word of warning – if I’ve offended you so far, I suggest you studiously avoid this article. I will call it “The article that will make the ITSM industry hate me” to give you a heads up.
Thankfully, Noel Bruton was on hand later that morning to put the BYOD issue into perspective. Bruton is an individual that assess IT support issues based on logic, reasoning and metrics, and is not swayed by hype. He freely admits that my working practices baffle him (he mentioned me during his presentation: “he is carrying a MacBook Air, iPad and iPhone – what’s the point?”) yet he argued that because consumersisation is a cultural, not a technological issue, service desks have no choice but to support a wider range of devices. “We must get away from procedural rigidity and embrace governed flexibility, we’re dealing with creatives, not data entry people,” he said, explaining that service desks will have to price their support services accurately before they can adopt BYOD. “Set an expectation, tell the users what you can support and if they demand more, explain that it will cost them.”
The day concluded with the recording of ITSMWP Rest of the World podcast, which was great fun to record, with the usual banter between some of the good and great in the ITSM world (even though I fear my rant – much of which has been outlined in this article – will jar once I listen back to it.)
In summary, SDITS12 was a fantastic event, well organised and thought-provoking. It’s great to see the industry attempting to change finally. Attitudes do however still need to change, because I fear that those who refuse to adapt are unlikely to be in the industry next year. See you at SITS13 (yes, the D has been banished).
Copyright © 2013 ServiceDesk360 All Rights Reserved.
I agree with much of what you say, but as I’ve said many times on the ITSMWPROW podcast some of us with a high profile in the industry forget how lucky we are to get so much exposure to new thinking. I can understand why others find it threatening. The great thing about the show was that it enabled an open debate which I hope will progress at other events this year. It was also very encouraging to see that vendors have reacted to the changing support landscape, so when IT departments wake up the tools will at least be ready.
Thanks James. Of course, it’s easy to criticise from a distance and this is why I tend to avoid being so outspoken as a commentator. However, after ten years of stagnation, change has been forced upon the industry and I believe there is no longer time to ponder. For the sake of the service desk industry and to protect the internal IT department, action must be taken now. I agree that SDITS12 showed an industry trying to change, it is my view that this must happen much faster than it currently is.
James West
Although I applaud much of the positive points above, there is something slightly worrying about criticism of some attendees as being ‘sneering’ and ‘cynical’ in their challenging some of the ideas raised. These are the Customers of ITSM tool vendors, of analysts, and industry institutes. It’s the customer that matters. How many times did we say that to ITSM practitioners at SDITS?. If they don’t see a value in something new in their business environment then I would respectfully suggest that they are the most qualified to hold that opinion for their own business environment. Yes, at these events we challenge the norm, and introduce new ideas, in two years time we may even be able to look back and say ‘we were right’, but if an attendee sees a new idea as impractical in their work-world then we should probably be respectful of that.
And they do have every right to tell us that.
Perhaps a more interesting though is… Why *were* many people questioning these ideas? Is there something they are telling us that we are refusing to hear?
Hope that makes sense. I work in a customer-centric business, and we pride ourselves on both listening to our customers, and well as innovating with new ideas.
That aside – good article. Made me comment
Thanks Ian, I agree it is a matter of personal preference. However, my words are aimed at those IT professionals who still haven’t taken the time to understand social media (the people that say “I don’t care what someone had for breakfast” – we’ve all heard this comment at some stage) and those who have never used a Google/Apple product because of personal bias. If you have seriously explored all of social media (again, it doesn’t begin and end with Facebook and Twitter – these are simply 1st gen applications, not the ultimate embodiment of what social media is/will become in an IT support context), and extensively used non-Windows products and still deem them useless for business IT provision, this a valid view. If your opinion is based upon prejudice and ignorance, you are of course entitled to this view. Just don’t be surprised when the BYOD (and Bring Your Own Application) minority become the majority and your IT department becomes little more than a shell overseeing the few remaining legacy apps and PCs.
Harsh I know, but as I commented to James Finister, there’s a time for softly, softly, and that time isn’t now.
A good article, and I am sorry I missed The Dancy, he’s always a breath of fresh air if a tad scary at times!
I was a bit surprised by your comment in this article: ‘When did the IT department become so arrogant that it dictated what technology people can use?’ The answer is: from the VERY beginning. The arrogance of IT folk has long been an issue with the customers they serve – from attitude and behaviour to dictating what customers (who ultimately keep them employed and pay their wages) may or may not do and/or use regarding technology. The fact that these attitudes are still so prevalent is worrying – I’ve been teaching and writing and speaking on this and other related topics for EVER. It seems that with each new wave of IT staff the cycle starts over – which leads me to state what I’ve always believed – we’re not very good at recruiting people with the right attitudes and behaviours. The primary focus still tends to be the technical skills they bring to the table (one of my sessions addressed this with regard to the managers we recruit or promote). People with a pulse have a far better record of successful and valued interactions with business users and customers. They understand the true value of effective business relationships and have that still all too rare ability to LISTEN to and understand their customers and to translate business needs into action. I do meet many service desk managers who ‘get’ this (not all do however). I don’t see very much of it in other managers. A very short-sighted approach in my opinion.
Thanks Jo, great comments. Yes, this is a cyclical issue of neglect but with one major difference: IT users were once a captive audience but now they have a choice. As I said on ITSMWPROW, I use Apple products to run my business because it means I can use advanced services (cloud, video conferencing, collaboration, integrated mobile internet) without the hassle of paying for/dealing with an IT department. The frightening thing is that in the modern workforce terms, I’m already a dinosaur, graduates leaving university today would laugh at my technical incompetence. The next generation are arriving at work as independent thinkers capable of, and expecting to, work at 100mph with seamless IT that can be bought off the shelf of John Lewis. This is the very real threat that IT departments face today: do we even need one?
James West
Yes indeed …will the IT department have any relevance in the future …. does the IT department have much relevance today? I asked that question in one of my sessions too
I believe it can be a powerful force for good in an organisation – but only if attitudes, approaches and towards both customers AND the technologies THEY wish to use change.
And James, if YOU are a dinosaur I dread to think what I must be!
Jo
Hi Jo and James,
I completely agree with the sentiment here, for me the issue can be summed up semantically as the difference between an “IT Department” and an “IT Service”. Anyone who feels that their role as an IT support professional or manager is to protect their users from themselves is probably in for a torrid time over the next few years. Shadow IT, an example of which being power users constructing their own views of corporate data (because they feel that IT is unable to help, doesn’t want to help, or is too slow) introduces some significant challenges but also offers great benefits to an organisation. The old mantra of adapt or die has never felt so relevant.
Justin
James, this was the 5th year in a row that I have attended the show and the first thing that struck me on day 1 specifically, was the volume of people. That means something for sure, preceisely what is a subjective debate, but I think it bodes well for the event if the expecation of many of those attendees was even partially met. For me though, in a sea of vendor stands, I still preceived a lack of focus on value props and USPs from many of the ITSM product vendors and a continued insistance on talking about Pink Verification and ITIL when for me, I wanted to hear about client value and the end user experience. The ITSM product space is so mature that it’s so hard to differentiate one from another, so I spent a lot of my time speaking to those who had a different story to tell and whose go to market strategies were based on what people need to address their pain and help their businesses to be more productive. Loved the conversations around Customer Experience and Loyalty, Social Media and Gamification, I hope they continue at the SDi conference in Daventry in June!
Unfortunately I missed SDITS12, so I’m coming at this purely from personal experience and no knowledge of what was actually said at the event.
The thing that has struck me over the past year is exactly the point that James made in his first response: That people “with a high profile within the industry forget how lucky we are to get so much exposure to new thinking.” A year ago, whilst the people in the know were talking about it, most organisations I spoke to didn’t understand the potential impact of BYOD or Social Media. I think the difference now is that most are aware, but it has had very little or no impact on them yet so they can’t understand what the fuss is about. In some cases it may have been a recent revelation. The causes of this are numerous, including the lack of Continual Service Improvement initiatives, internal governance, external regulation and, of course, the will to acknowledge that the World might actually be changing. Graduates, and indeed IT support people, may know that things are changing but the Business environments they work in don’t permit it.
As Jo pointed out we are talking about cultural change here, not just technology, and that can take a long time to take effect across business sectors especially in regulated environments. One size doesn’t fit all nor should it. I fear the very people you’re aiming this at will never have the foresight to read articles such as these, but we can try.