Top 3 Key Factors for ITSM Success

In today's fast-paced and technology-driven world, efficient IT service management (ITSM) is the backbone of successful organisations. The ability to streamline processes, resolve incidents promptly, and provide exceptional customer support is paramount. That's where Atlassian's Jira Service Management (JSM) product comes into play. 

In this blog, we will explore the world of JSM implementations and the key factors that drive their success. Whether you are considering implementing JSM for the first time or seeking to enhance your existing setup, these insights will prove invaluable.

Being an Atlassian ITSM specialised partner, the GLiNTECH team brings a wealth of experience in JSM implementations and migrations from other ITSM and Asset Management tool-sets. and some of the key lessons learnt along the way to ensure success. We want to share with your some key factors we have identified when delivering a successful JSM implementations.

1. Change Management - An ITSM tooling replacement is an exercise in business change management. Ensuring people, process and tools are aligned is pertinent to the success in achieving your target state. GLiNTECH recommends organisations holistically prepare for the change, because it is equally as important as managing the technical aspects of the project. Some key parts of this are:
   1. Building a project team. Collaboration is key to managing a successful JSM implementation. We recommend forming a team of key stakeholders to collaborate from the beginning. For example, GLiNTECH finds that including your Security team from the outset helps remove potential blockers that could surface due to delays in security sign-off. 
   2. Communication is key. Project governance and regular cadence it critical for keeping people informed and the project on-track. You should consider and formulate an approach for managing risks, actions, issues and decisions.
   3. Invest in training. GLiNTECH finds this small upfront investment results in lower longer-term maintenance costs and leads to a more productive and successful UAT and launch in the short-term. We will help determine the relevant level of training and courses for your key resources/users based on your organisation's profile. Refer to Training for more details on our Training.
      
      
2. Data Quality and Rationalisation - Any tooling replacement is an opportunity to optimise your ways of working and can help you achieve improvements in business operations, and reduce risks and IT costs and set your organisation up for a successful implementation.
   1. Take the time to understand your reporting needs. Moving to another tool allows you to review what data to bring across, as well as optimise your configuration. Optimising your instances and archiving data prior to migration may be an additional effort, but it is strongly recommended.
   2. Review process and configuration. Review your current instances and analyse what is in use, what works and doesn’t work and what is required for reporting and compliance. This will help form the target state design and set you up for a successful implementation.
   3. Understand your data migration requirements. Whether your organisation has been managing IT Services for decades or is new on the journey, your approach to how you migrate data essential. We’ve all heard the proverb “rubbish in, rubbish out”, If input data is not complete, accurate, and timely, then the resulting output is unreliable and of no useful value. Be sure to understand any commercial or regulatory data management and retention requirements applicable before migrating any data.
      
      
3. Business requirements gathering - Taking the time to gather business requirements ahead of time is proven to increase the changes of success for ITSM projects, this step usually goes hand in hand with business change management and will likely improve your project teams efficiency as well as building trust among your business users that they will have a solution they want and need.
   1. Identify all the relevant stakeholders. It’s important to develop a comprehensive stakeholder engagement plan, you want to consider the needs of everyone. An easy place to start is by making a list of the key groups, e.g. Customers both internal and external, System users, support staff & administrators, decision-makers and suppliers.
   2. Elicit and document the requirements from stakeholders. It’s necessary to take the time to talk to your stakeholders and understand what they want and need. Use time-tested techniques such as surveys, questionnaires, and interviews and follow-up meetings Listen actively, ask probing questions and take copious notes. Afterward, organise your notes and follow up as necessary. Document each exercise or encounter thoroughly.
   3. Prioritise the requirements. Most ITSM programs run into unexpected challenges and obstacles. Schedules are delayed. Priorities change. It’s important to be able to adapt to those challenges and changes. In business analysis we prioritise requirements based on how each will impact the goals and objectives of our release. Use priorities such as “must have,” “should have”, “nice to have” and “won’t have” and then develop your schedule accordingly.

GLiNTECH’s experience in ITSM success requires a strategic approach and adherence to these key factors. The GLiNTECH ITSM team, an Atlassian ITSM specialized partner, brings extensive experience in JSM implementations and migrations, along with valuable lessons learned. Contact GLiNTECH’s experts today and make the most of your Jira Service Management investment.