Adaptavist predicts 2022: top trends in ITSM and ESM

In this edition, we take a look at what topics within IT Service Management (ITSM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) are likely to be the most hotly talked about in the coming year. From top trends to key talking points, ITSM and ESM will undoubtedly be playing a pivotal role in the evolving nature of our workplaces in 2022 and beyond.

This is the second blog of a series, feel free to check out our others predictions on agile and DevOps.  

Our experts reckon that the top ITSM and ESM trends for 2022 will be the following:

• ESM becoming more mainstream
• How ITSM/ESM can meet the ongoing challenges of remote/hybrid ways of working
• More emphasis on understanding the needs and requirements of your users
• Teams need to be practise agility in all aspects of work
• Automation, automation, automation
• Increased use of reporting to supercharge processes

2021 showed us that achieving business efficiency was a main driver for organisations embracing ESM, with 64% of respondents to our own State of Atlassian Report 2021 citing this, increasing productivity, and improving user experience. But with more widely distributed teams, and remote or hybrid working becoming more common, a one-stop shop that meets people’s needs simply and efficiently has never been more important. 

The KISS principle (keep it simple and structured) applies here. Any processes, services, actions, or metrics that aren’t providing value or useful outcomes to your organisation have no place in your ITSM or ESM strategy. The fewer number of steps, with the minimum amount of complexity, the better the service you’re going to be providing for your people. And in the current climate, you need to consider how best to deliver an excellent experience both in the office and remotely, and what you can do to help make that as seamless as possible.

So, with simplicity, structure, and streamlining top of mind, let’s take a look at those key predicted service management trends in more detail.

There’s nothing niche about ESM any more, and established ESM organisations have proven the value of the service management mentality. As a result we’re starting to see others in many different sectors begin to follow suit–almost all respondents to our State of Atlassian Report 2021 said that at least one team outside of IT was now using a service model solution to manage their workflows . The economic benefits to organisations are undeniable, not to mention the experience benefits that the service customers gain. If you’re not already making moves to extend ITSM’s principles to other departments and embrace ESM in 2022, you’re going to get left behind.

Across nearly every sector of the workforce, there has been a demand for digital transformation. Remote working is a reality that only some companies were dealing with pre-pandemic. But in 2022, two years after Covid-19 changed the face of work, the landscape looks a lot different. From HR to marketing, every team provides a service to others within the organisation to some degree - a service that doesn’t strictly need to be delivered in person from an office. 

Where once we adhered to a rigid 9-5 working day, and depended on being able to walk over to someone’s desk to make a request or chase up some paperwork, we’ve now adopted platforms and collaboration tools that bridge that gap created by remote and asynchronous working. In 2022, it will be more important than ever to assess the changing needs, challenges, and tool choices of your remote workforce as your ESM implementation promotes more and more self-service activity.

Some ITSM initiatives suffer from siloed thinking – IT teams believing they know what’s best and implementing processes that suit their way of working rather than the users. Moving forward, ESM will become even more customer-focused. The service desk should be designed with the bigger picture in mind and with user requirements front and centre. If you’re struggling to see success with your service desk, chances are it’s not making sense to the people who need it most. 

Consider implementing user group sessions or running a Design Sprint to answer key questions, work through design prototypes, and test your service desk on your users. You can also make the most of real-time feedback and your service desk’s reporting facilities to find out if there are any gaps in your offering.

Like modern software development, your ITSM or ESM approach must be agile. According to Gartner, by 2023 around 80% of ITSM teams that are failing to work with agility will find their efforts being ignored or bypassed. People will find a fix that suits their agile way of working, so service management has to meet that expectation. 

An agile approach where you start small and build slowly, iterating to take into account what’s working well and where improvements can be made, will ensure your service desk teams can adapt to accommodate whatever lies ahead.

ESM is supposed to make everyone’s lives easier – from service providers to users. That means reducing the amount of information gathering and sharing done manually, leaning on automation, and introducing human interventions only when they’re absolutely necessary. 

ESM is there to augment the human experience, not replace it entirely. The companies that harness the power of machine learning and chatbots to complement their teams and free them up to work on more complex, higher-priority tickets, will be the ones to reap the most rewards in 2022.

Finally, organisations are going to be working hard to continually improve their ESM processes. Looking at each service offering through a Better Value Sooner SAFe®r Happier (BVSSH) lens. 

As ESM activity matures, it will become easier to leverage experience and identify trends. We should see more trend and behaviour reporting across ESM-enabled organisations, and a far clearer picture of how service management is benefitting those businesses. Beyond mere implementation, organisations can ask what are the costs, quality, and cycle time benefits? Are our users happier and who is happiest? And is the cost of managing this service lower than before?

Rather than simply doing service management, we should see a more adaptive approach where ESM is serving a higher purpose with a focus on improving business outcomes. This focus will address the end-userrequirements through the delivery of processes that are supported by the Service Management tooling.