What Is ITSM and Why Does It Matter for Government?

This blog post was written in partnership with TeamDynamix.

The federal government spends at least $90 billion annually on IT. In fact, in 2018, federal government spent $96 billion on IT, and state and local governments spent $103 billion. And in 2018, the current administration passed the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act to allocate funds to federal agencies to update legacy IT systems and improve service delivery for citizens.

This increased spend on technology in the public sector is generally a good thing, helping agencies modernize their IT and improve their digital services to better connect with citizens. But the more money that is allotted in technology spends, means that government IT teams are being asked to implement and support more – but may not be getting the additional resources they truly need to make progress. Additionally, teams are often still working to support and maintain existing legacy systems. This means IT leaders often end up resource-constrained and challenged by their goals.

When resources are limited, and demand is on the rise as it is today from citizens, IT can quickly become overwhelmed.

One way to move forward? Increase your IT maturity around service and project management. These areas often drain resources and while most organizations use some sort of IT ticketing system, many have still not embraced full IT service management (ITSM) or  life-cycle delivery with integrated project management.

So where do you start, both in leveraging an ITSM platform, and improving your IT maturity? Here are five core pillars and best practices to consider.

• Bring ITSM & Project Management Together: Tickets are sometimes not just a ticket; sometimes they can become full-blown problems that then require project level oversight and resource allocation. By having ITSM and project portfolio management together on one platform, IT leaders can truly see resource assignments, move resources and workload balance. And by converting tickets to projects within one platform, the workflow is seamless.
• Improve Change Management: According to the IT Process Institute, 80 percent of unplanned downtime is caused by IT Itself. Implementing change management processes helps mitigate unforeseen consequences that stem from improper planning and resource management.
• Consider Self-Service Portals: HDI states that the average cost of a support call is $22 vs. $2 for self-service. Many organizations find that without a self-service portal, resources are drained due to high call volume and repetitive calls. More mature organizations have built out a service catalog and distinct workflows.
• Deploy a Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS): Inevitably, when discussing self-service, organizations will point to a lack of online information/knowledge base. One of the ways to quickly bolster content is to use knowledge-centered service (KCS), which is essentially a method of crowdsourcing content. By leveraging KCS, new content is created as a byproduct of group problem solving where popular content is reviewed and expanded based on collective experience and knowledge.
• Use an ITIL Framework: When it comes to IT maturity, many organizations will contemplate the degree to which processes are documented, embedded and standardized across an organization. One of the ways this can be viewed is against the ITIL framework. As a set of practices that imparts practical and strategic guidance for IT service management, the overall goal of ITIL is to improve the business service and maturity.

Resources can be significantly limited for government IT teams, even as budgets and spending are on the rise. And as citizens are demanding ever-more digital services, IT can quickly become overwhelmed. By leveraging an ITSM solution that allows you to adopt ITIL best practices, your IT team will be able to be more proactive, strategic, seamless, and meeting the mission of your agency – and your overall IT maturity will rocket.

To learn more about ITSM platforms, increasing your IT maturity, and a true ITIL lifecycle management with a self-services portal and compliant knowledge base, visit TeamDynamix’s site.