Tag Archives: ITSM

Customer Experience, Leadership

From Behaviors to Business Value: A Customer Experience Framework for Operationalizing CX

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Customer Experience (CX) is broadly defined as a customer’s overall perception of a company or brand based on all their interactions with it. This spans every step of the journey, such as visiting a website or store, interacting with customer service, using a product or service, or receiving follow-ups, emails, or support.

For example, if you quickly find what you need on a website, get helpful support when you have a problem, or receive your product on time, you’d likely say that the company provides good CX.  However, if any of those things go poorly, you’d probably say that you had a bad CX.

This simple example highlights the core challenge of CX.  CX – good or bad – is based on the perception of the customer.  While companies do not control the customer perception, they can influence it through the experiences they design and deliver.

Business leaders know CX matters.  But many businesses struggle to connect CX to employee behaviors, business decisions, budgets, and organizational priorities.

It’s not that these organizations aren’t collecting customer experience metrics.  They are measuring customer reactions rather than intentionally designing the experience. More importantly, they are not linking those experiences to business results.

Are you focused on the effect rather than the cause?

Many organizations treat CX as a “soft” discipline and rely heavily on perception-based metrics. For example, surveys and measures like NPS and CSAT focus only the perception of the customer post-interaction.  This reactive approach provides limited insight into business results, resulting in CX being viewed separately from business performance. This makes it difficult for business leaders to justify CX investments because they cannot connect investments to business outcomes.

Having said that, CX is a key differentiator as products and services become more similar and commoditized. Poor CX can (and will) drive customers away – even if the product itself is good.

In the face of “doing something rather than nothing”, business leaders often invest in “last mile” customer-facing capabilities in reaction to poor CX scores.  Organizations invest in digital capabilities like mobile apps, AI chatbots, and self-service portals as they perceive that customers prefer these channels for interaction.   They invest training and coaching programs within the contact centers to teach skills like structured problem-solving or empathy. Or they invest in workforce management tools and flexible staffing models to better forecast and meet anticipated customer demand.

And while these investments may influence the customer perception in the moment, they still do not directly translate to business results.  In fact, they often mask the real issues – poor system design, poor understanding of the customer journey, and a poor understanding of the underpinning foundation that enables good CX.

Where good CX actually starts

Good CX does not start at the digital channel or the interaction with a contact center. Not taking these steps in order results in the service and support provided at the last mile appearing to be an afterthought.

Good CX results from the following three steps:

First, understand the real-world issue customers are encountering through journey design. Journey design focuses on the human experience, mapping out the steps a customer takes to achieve a goal, uncovering their emotions, points of friction, and needs along the way.

The next step is to engineer a scalable user-friendly way for the customer to accomplish their goals and eliminate those points of friction. This is done via product and solution design.   To be clear, product design focused on building a specific repeatable vehicle isn’t enough; the end-to-end infrastructure, software, and processes needed to deliver a solution must also be developed.  (Design thinking is a good approach for product and solution design.)

The last step in enabling good CX is the intentional design of service and support. Intentionally designing the operational workflows, contact center procedures, knowledge bases, and contact channels to help customers before the customer needs help ensures that resolution to issues feel seamless and matches the experience designed during journey mapping.

Following these three steps shifts the focus from reacting to the feedback of the day to proactively developing and delivering the CX the organization wants. Now CX becomes measurable in a way that is relevant and meaningful to the business.

A framework for measuring CX

When it comes to measuring CX, most organizations focus on the effect, rather than the cause. This focus on the effect often results in organizations investing in things that may not move the needle when it comes to realizing business outcomes from CX.

Building on the foundation of journey design, followed by product and solution design, and finally to purposeful design of service and support, organizations can focus on identifying and implementing CX measures that are relevant to organizational strategy and business results.  Drawing on established performance management principles, a simple cause-effect-business outcome CX framework (similar to service value streams) can be used to measure and evaluate CX.

  • Cause – “Cause” represents behaviors that are within the control of the organization. The cause consists of employee behaviors and operational activities that shape the customer experience. Employees that follow through on commitments, demonstrate ownership, and solve issues quickly shape a positive customer experience.
  • Effect – The effect represents what customers experience and perceive. This is where the traditional measures like NPS, CSAT, and survey responses belong, and reflect if the intended experience is being delivered.
  • Business Outcome – Business outcomes illustrate whether the customer experience is delivering business value. Business results and value are typically depicted in an organization’s goals and objectives, and represent targets like revenue growth, customer retention, reduced customer churn, and lower service costs. When measures connect cause to effect to business outcomes, CX evolves from being just a customer service initiative to a business discipline.  

This is not to say that perception measures like NPS and survey feedback are no longer needed or useful – they are.  But too many organizations consider perception metrics to be the goal, which it is not. Perception metrics help the organization understand if the customer is realizing the intended outcomes of product and service design.

Secondly, the strongest causes are both observable and measurable.  It’s one thing to say that an organization demonstrates customer focus; it’s another thing to measure that customer focus in terms of response time, resolution quality, and commitment completion rates.

Lastly, keep in mind that not every behavior influences every business outcome. Organizations must first identify the causes that have both the greatest impact on customer experience and on business results.

Making CX Measurable and Meaningful

Making CX measurable and meaningful starts with shifting focus from what customers say to what drives their experience – and how that connects to business outcomes. Ask these three questions:

  • What customer behaviors or employee actions are we measuring as causes?
  • What customer perceptions are we measuring as effects?
  • What business outcomes are we expecting those experiences to produce?

If you can measure the effect but not identify the cause or connect it to a business result, your CX measurement framework is incomplete.

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AI and Modernization, Service Management

AI isn’t Failing – Your ITSM Foundation is Shaky

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Many organizations are frustrated that investments in AI have not delivered anticipated results, especially regarding IT Service Management (ITSM).

Introducing AI into an ITSM environment offers huge potential—but most organizations encounter similar obstacles. Here are some of the common challenges that organizations encounter:

  • Data and process maturity problems – AI amplifies immaturity—it doesn’t fix it.
  • Organizational and cultural resistance -Fear and misunderstanding slow adoption.
  • Lack of structured governance and continuous improvement – AI needs ongoing oversight and continual tuning; it is not a one-time deployment.
  • Unrealistic Expectations – Senior management often expects AI to immediately reduce headcount, solve all categorization and routing issues, replace Tier 1 support and deliver human-level accuracy…. All on day one. AI is a tool; it is not magic.

But despite these well-publicized challenges, many organizations jump in headfirst and invest in AI tools that promise dramatic improvement of their ITSM capabilities. But the excitement of implementing that AI-enabled chatbot or copilot quickly fades when the organization starts to realize that their ITSM environment just isn’t ready.

Just like you can’t build a house on a shaky foundation, implementing an effective and impactful approach to AI adoption within ITSM must start with a strong foundation. Good ITSM is part of that strong foundation.

What is “Good AI”?

Let’s first discuss “Good AI”. Good AI is:

  • Aligned with human goals and values – Good AI supports human intentions, helping people make better decisions, work more efficiently, or access information. Good AI does not mislead, manipulate, or undermine autonomy.
  • Safe, predictable, and reliable – Good AI behaves consistently and avoids unexpected or harmful outcomes. It should be transparent regarding its limitations.
  • Fair and unbiased – Minimizes bias and treats groups and individuals equitably.
  • Respects privacy – protects user data, uses the minimum data necessary and allows users control over how data is collected and used.
  • Transparent and explainable – People should be able to understand how AI reached a conclusion, what data it used to reach that conclusion, and how confident it is in its result.
  • Human-centered – Designed for real human needs, intuitive/easy to interact with, and supportive (not replacing humans where judgement and empathy are vital.

But “Good AI” cannot fix “Bad ITSM”.

What is “Good ITSM”?

As I’ve said before, “good ITSM” is a business enabler, not just an IT function.  Good ITSM:

  • Standardizes how work gets done across the organization, improving both productivity and throughput.
  • Provides clarity and transparency into how value flows through the organization, enabling better visibility of end‑to‑end value streams.
  • Identifies and defines services and processes that underpin organizational value streams, helping connect IT work directly to business outcomes.
  • Brings repeatability, reliability, and measurability to all aspects of the organization—not just IT operations.
  • Follows a human-centric approach emphasizing outcomes, experience, and putting people at the center of service delivery.

Good ITSM is foundational for realizing the benefits of good AI. Unfortunately, many organizations wanting to implement AI follow the same mistaken approach to technology adoption…by starting with the technology, and “working backwards” to process and people. These organizations are trying to build their AI houses on shaky ground – a recipe for unnecessary cost, frustration, and missed expectations and opportunities.

“But we already bought the AI tool”

Perhaps your organization is on this same path to AI adoption – starting with the technology. And likely, your organization is encountering the same challenges that many other organizations face when introducing AI to their ITSM environments. It may seem like you’re facing a “mission impossible”. What steps can be taken to turn this difficult circumstance into a positive outcome?

How about using AI adoption as a catalyst for shoring up the shaky ground of bad ITSM? Here’s a suggested approach:

  • Establish a goal – Define and agree on two to three business-oriented goals for AI adoption within ITSM. AI within ITSM should not be approached as a point solution; rather, AI should be considered within the broader perspective of ITSM. Defining overarching goals for AI in ITSM – in business terms – ensures that broader perspective.
  • Define how those goals will be measured – Measures should be more than just from an IT operations perspective. Measures should also reflect things like reduction of friction, accuracy of the AI-provided solution, user satisfaction, and usability.
  • Pick a value stream – Start with one high-impact, highly visible value stream that would benefit both the IT consumer and the IT organization, like “onboard a new employee”, or “provide access”. Identify and review the procedures that support the steps identified in the value stream. Are those procedures documented and in use? Are there steps that are missing procedures?
  • Involve the right people – As with most value streams, success depends on the engagement and contributions of people both within and outside of the IT team.
  • Conduct experiments – It is impractical to think that you’ll be able to accomplish the goals and objectives of AI adoption within ITSM in a single go. Use small Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) loops to experiment and learn, not only about the AI tool’s capabilities, but also how best to leverage those capabilities within your ITSM environment. PDCA loops will also help identify where ITSM practices just aren’t ready: poor data capture or quality, dead-end workflows, inconsistencies in categorization and escalation, and other “bad ITSM” behaviors.
  • Share the learning – Sharing the learning improves collaboration, strengthens understanding of both ITSM and AI, and helps build momentum for further adoption and use.

Ready to turn AI frustration into AI advantage?

AI won’t rescue bad ITSM—it will expose it. The organizations that succeed with AI aren’t the ones chasing shiny technology; they’re the ones with strong processes, clear value streams, and a culture ready for change. When ITSM is solid, AI becomes a multiplier. When it’s not, AI becomes a mirror.

Use this moment. Let AI adoption be the spark that fixes shaky workflows, strengthens data quality, and aligns teams around meaningful outcomes. Start small, learn fast, and build momentum.

Ready to turn AI frustration into AI advantage? Start by strengthening your ITSM foundation—because that’s where real transformation begins.

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AI and Modernization, Leadership, Service Management

From IT Support to Enterprise Nerve Center: ESM Is the CIO’s AI-Era Edge

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In this recent CIO.com article, Mike Blandina, the CIO at Snowflake, made some predictions regarding the CIO role. As one would expect, AI adoption is a significant part of Blandina’s predictions, but there are a few details within his predictions that I found interesting:

  • The need for governance frameworks – As organizations adopt AI-enabled capabilities, they must also adopt responsible AI practices. CIOs will be held accountable to implement governance frameworks that span the entire AI lifecycle, with clear ownership, regular audits, and documented risk assessments.
  • Enterprise-wide innovation – The CIO role will shift from ‘IT’ to ‘ET’ – enterprise technology The traditional IT metrics will still matter, but CIOs will increasingly focus on business outcomes. The IT function becomes less about infrastructure and more about delivering intelligence.
  • Technology must move from only support to business-critical – Blandina concludes his article by stating that “successful CIOs will be those who elevate technology from a support function to the central nervous system of the business.”

Admittedly, these are all topics that have been long discussed. What is different now?

At the risk of stating the obvious, the difference now is the business demand to adopt AI-enabled capabilities. This demand represents a significant opportunity for CIOs to transform the role and reputation of IT. Now is the time to act.

Are you ready for the new (renewed?) expectations of the CIO role? Can your IT organization elevate its thinking from just developing and implementing technology solutions to delivering business outcomes?

If not, enterprise service management (ESM) may be the solution.

Why ESM is the solution

ESM is a way to meet the new expectations that organizations will have of CIOs. While ESM leverages the principles of IT Service Management (ITSM), true ESM is not just extending IT workflows into other departments within an organization. ESM is an organizational capability for holistically delivering business value and outcomes, based upon shared processes, appropriate technology, increased organizational collaboration, and better communication across the organization.

As I’ve said before, when done well, ESM drives greater operational efficiency, fosters cross-department collaboration, reduces costs, enhances customer satisfaction, and increases an organization’s ability to adapt quickly to changing business needs. It also strengthens governance and compliance, while the improved service delivery resulting from effective ESM enables a truly differentiated customer experience.

Don’t fall for “imposter ESM”

Unfortunately, many organizations have adopted what I would call “imposter ESM”. For example, many organizations have fallen into the trap of trying to extend IT-oriented workflows into other parts of the organization. Other organizations have used the guise of an ESM initiative to spread the costs of an expensive ITSM tool across the organization. Still others take a technology-first approach and install department-specific modules intended to manage workflows within those departments.

None of these approaches deliver the benefits of real ESM adoption. The CIO can avoid imposter ESM by following these tips:

  • ESM is best considered as a business strategy designed to deliver value and improve both the employee and customer experience across the enterprise.
  • ESM requires that organizations break down silos and focus on end-to-end value streams, which involves collaboration across departments.
  • ESM establishes the foundation for compliance to governance policies to ensure consistent and measurable business outcomes and value.

Good ESM positions organizations to take advantage of AI-enabled capabilities. But it’s more than that – good ESM positions the CIO to establish IT as a business-critical capability, driving appropriately-governed technology to deliver business outcomes.

Elevate Enterprise Value through Strategic ESM Foundations

These critical success factors for ESM also provide a great foundation for effective ESM.

  • Understanding how value is perceived within the organization – Talk to other business leaders to understand how they perceive value – and how to measure and report on that value.
  • Understanding and mapping organizational value streams – Value stream mapping provides visualization of how value flows through the organization. A value stream map also depicts where collaboration is required for the customer to realize value.
  • Understanding the journeys of customers and employees – Journey mapping provides insights into the experience of individuals as they interact with the organization. Journey mapping provides the foundation for delivering differentiated human experiences, both within and external to the organization.
  • Committing to continual improvement – Formally build continual improvement capabilities to ensure that the organization can react to changes in the business environment in a timely fashion to ensure on-going value to its stakeholders.

AI adoption can be transformational with an organization. But, as with any transformational and impactful solution, there is no “magic wand.”  Technology – like AI – only amplifies the current state of workflows and behaviors – right or wrong. Outcomes come from the interactions of people, systems, and tools – not just tools alone. Good business results come from an effective strategy for achieving objectives – not from chasing technology without clear business goals and defined success measures.

Good ESM is no different. But the benefits of good ESM are more than establishing a holistic and collaborative approach for delivering business value and results. Good ESM provides the foundation for governance, fuels innovation by understanding how work gets done, and shifts the role of IT from technology support to business enabler.

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Leadership, Service Management

The ITSM blind spots holding back your business

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In today’s digital economy, IT is no longer just a support function.  The products and services provided by IT are engines for business growth, enabling a differentiated set of capabilities in the marketplace.

Effective ITSM transforms IT into a powerful engine that drives exceptional business performance and fuels sustained competitive advantage.

Yet, too many organizations have a blind spot when it comes to ITSM.  Too many organizations view ITSM only as a back-office activity, providing support and resolving tickets. A significant reason why this situation exists is that many ITSM implementations are focused only on managing the work of (some parts of the) IT organization, and not the business of the business.

I’ve talked about this before – too many organizations take a technology-first approach to service management, rather than investing effort in establishing a mutually-agreed understanding of the benefits of ITSM. Many organizations’ ITSM efforts are not aligned with business goals and objectives.  These ITSM implementations are focused on what has happened, seemingly looking through the rear-view mirror rather than looking through the windshield, to proactively becoming  a business enabler. These ITSM environments are perceived as being overly bureaucratic, unable to respond to or quickly adopt new capabilities or technologies in response to ever-changing business needs.

These organizations have created – and maintain – a blind spot when it comes to ITSM.

What’s been overlooked – or ignored?

For many organizations, ITSM is only the service desk and the ‘core four’ practices – incident, change, service request, and problem management.  Are these practices necessary?  Absolutely.

But by only implementing these ‘core four’ practices, organizations will have overlooked opportunities to change the perception of ITSM to business enabler.  What has been overlooked?

  • Service Strategy – What is the plan for developing, providing, and supporting technology-based products and services that align with business goals and objectives? How will these products and services create value and enable competitive advantage? What trends and emerging business demands should be considered? Unfortunately, many organizations have not considered defining their strategy for service management.
  • Portfolio Management – A defined portfolio of products, services, and related service management investments enables strategic decision making. Effective portfolio management helps minimize technical debt, prioritize initiatives, and aligns service with business goals.
  • Service Design – Having a formally-defined, holistic approach to designing the products and services that provide the capabilities required by the organization is critical for the realization of business value. In many organizations, service design is the domain of only the application development teams, often with no involvement from users or other parts of the IT organization.
  • Measurement and Reporting – Many organizations capture measures and produce reports only because the tools that are in use do that – and even then, those measures and reports are about IT. Measures and reports must be purposeful and specific to the audiences (there is more than one!). If we understand how products and service enable business success (see service strategy), then we know what is important to the organization to measure and report.
  • Continual Improvement – Development and implementation of products and services can never be “once-and-done” activities. Business needs in response to marketplaces are continually evolving.  Continual improvement provides a means of dealing with the ever-evolving needs of the organization.  Yet, many ITSM implementations have not defined a formalized approach to continual improvement to deal with these ever-evolving needs, contributing to the perception of IT being nonresponsive.

Shining the light on the ITSM blind spots holding you back

There is no quick fix for addressing these blind spots in ITSM implementations.  Addressing these blind spots will require collaboration, thoughtful experimentation, good governance, and commitment.

However, there are simple actions that can start to shine light on those blind spots.

  • Regularly job shadow non-IT colleagues for a day – Learn how IT-provided products and services facilitate the work being done by non-IT colleagues – or get in the way. Shadowing also encourages empathy between IT associates and  non-IT colleagues and can provide input into future service designs.
  • Critically evaluate your current reporting – Are the measures and reports being produced by IT reflect organizational outcomes and business value? If not, it’s time to revisit that organizational mission/vision/goals statement and learn what is important to the business – and measure and report on that.
  • Challenge the status quo – Just because work has always been done in some manner doesn’t make it right. Where are the gaps in the ways that IT and non-IT colleagues interact? What work is being done that just doesn’t quite meet organizational requirements? Even small incremental improvements make a difference.

A “business results first” ITSM mindset transforms IT from a back-office support function into a proactive catalyst for business success. By shining a light on the blind spots in your ITSM environment and embracing strategy, portfolio management, holistic service design, meaningful measurement, and continual improvement, IT can truly enable competitive advantage, innovation, and organizational growth. The journey starts with collaboration, curiosity, and the courage to challenge the status quo—lighting the way for IT to become a valued business enabler, not just a resolver of tickets.

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AI and Modernization, Service Management

Exposed: Your bad ITSM habits AI won’t ignore

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As I discussed in another blog, many organizations are rushing to adopt and implement AI-enabled technologies within their ITSM environments. AI can have a significant positive impact on an organization’s ITSM environment.

But if an organization isn’t practicing good ITSM, introducing AI will just make bad ITSM habits worse.

Excuse me…your bad ITSM is showing

In my experience, many organizations that are practicing bad ITSM don’t realize it. Here’s some examples of bad ITSM:

  • Services are not defined. Service definitions describe how people, processes, and technology are used to deliver business value and business outcomes, as well as the specific costs and risks that are managed by IT. But without defined services, there is no shared understanding of the business impact of service interruption, no formal way to determine if existing services can be used to enable new business value, and no way to quantify the contributions of the IT organization – in business terms – to organizational success. The lack of defined services can also be a factor contributing to technical debt.
  • Using the wrong practices and expecting good results. Practices have defined purposes and produce defined results. Using the wrong practices produces unreliable results, as well as unnecessary human effort. For example, practices like registering all contacts to a service desk as “incidents”, then manually reviewing those contacts to determine if they are actually service requests. Or using “service requests” to manage deployments of laptop computers. This just scratches the surface of practice abuses that I’ve encountered.
  • No defined workflows for fulfilling service requests. Many self-service portals are nothing more than a way for consumers to fill out their own service request tickets or initiate an email for requesting service offerings. The result is someone in IT must take manual action to fulfill service requests.
  • Rubber-stamping requests for change (RfCs). I recall reading a blog from Rob England (from his days as The IT Skeptic) wherein he described “change management theater” – entertaining, but nothing really happens. Sadly, this is an appropriate description for what many organizations call “change management”. Changes are pushed through without proper review or the CAB meeting becomes a formality, approving changes without sufficient scrutiny or understanding of potential impacts.
  • Lack of post-action reviews. The step for reviewing the success and impact of a change or an incident or other ITSM event, and learning from any issues, is skipped due to time constraints or perceived lack of value. Never mind that opportunities for learning and improvement are missed.
  • Poor CMDB practices. Updates to the CMDB are done manually and are not integrated with change, release, or deployment management practices, potentially making the information contained within the CMDB suspect. Or an organization will conduct a “discovery” of its computing environment and call that its “CMDB”. Discovery is a way to validate a CMDB and not a way to create and maintain a CMDB. Discovery will never find the logical or non-physical elements of the computing environment that are critical for effective service management.
  • SLAs are not. I’ve discussed the problem with many SLAs before. Not only do many SLAs not discuss services, they also don’t discuss business results and value.
  • Taking a “technology-first” approach – While technology is a needed enabler for ITSM, good service management is more than just implementation of a tool. Taking a technology-first approach typically limits ITSM design to the capabilities of the tool and not based on the requirements of the organization.

Why is bad ITSM a problem for AI?

To become effective, AI solutions must go through a period of learning.  An AI “learns” by identifying patterns through repeated exposure to huge quantities of data and uses algorithms to learn from that data.  The effectiveness of any AI solution is dependent on the quality of the underlying processes and data.

AI solutions must also be made aware of business rules. Business rules define specific criteria and policies that guide the AI system’s decision-making process to ensure alignment with organizational goals and other requirements.

But if IT processes and workflows are not well-defined or are no longer aligned with business needs, AI will do the wrong thing right.  If services and associated SLAs are not defined in terms of business outcomes, that means that business rules are missing within the ITSM environment.  Those training the AI will lack business-based criteria to guide the AI’s decision-making process to ensure alignment with organizational goals and other requirements.

So, when an organization practices bad ITSM and then tries to apply AI to what they call “ITSM”, well…bad things will happen.

  • AI has no rules to follow. An AI system, particularly one designed for automation, needs a clear framework to operate within. If you don’t define a “troubleshooting workflow for a printer issue,” the AI has no way of knowing what steps to take. It can’t classify a ticket, route it, or suggest a solution if it doesn’t understand the process.
  • Automation becomes chaos. Instead of improving efficiency, you risk creating more problems. An AI might take an action that is technically correct but disrupts a broader, unwritten process. Without defined criteria for success or failure, it’s impossible to know if the AI’s actions are helping…or just adding to the mess.
  • No way to measure success or failure. Without defined evaluation criteria, you can’t tell if the AI is working. Is a 10% reduction in average resolution time good? Is it a result of the AI, or something else? If you don’t have a baseline or a goal, you can’t justify the investment or prove the value of the AI solution.
  • Ineffective training of AI models. AI models, especially machine learning models, are trained using historical data. If that data reflects inconsistent or ad-hoc processes, the AI will learn and replicate that inconsistency.

4 things to help clean up your bad ITSM practices

This is not the first time that I’ve discussed the impact that bad ITSM will have on good AI. Here are four things to do to start for cleaning up bad ITSM practices:

  • Define and document the business rules. How is the organization making decisions? What is the criteria for making those decisions? What are the goals and objectives of the organization? The answers to these questions provide decision-criteria that should be used in the design of good ITSM practices.
  • Map value streams. Not just value streams found inside of IT, but organizational value streams. Those value streams become the basis for identifying and defining services.
  • Map workflows. All of them. Start with analyzing historical data to identify and understand the most common incidents and requests. Don’t forget to also go to the Gemba to understand  how work is currently being done to identify where procedures are not meeting the business need.  These workflows form the foundation for process models.
  • Define business-oriented KPIs. How does your organization know what ITSM success looks like? IT metrics alone will not tell the story. You need metrics that reflect business results and value.

Incorporating AI into an organization’s ITSM capabilities offers massive transformative potential. Unfortunately, many expect that AI adoption will magically solve all their ITSM problems. Others are pursuing AI-enabled ITSM solutions because of the fear of missing out. Without first addressing existing ITSM bad habits, AI will amplify, rather than solve underlying issues, resulting in more work for humans and poor business results.

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Human Centered Design, Service Management

ITSM is failing your customers – here’s why

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When it comes to who is the “customer”, many ITSM implementations are simply confused. And this confusion is why ITSM is failing your customers.

Some IT organizations think the “customer” is someone that contacts a service desk. Others think the “customer” is someone who defines the requirements for a service. But that definition quickly fades once the implementation project is completed and the project sponsor resumes their normal duties. Still other ITSM implementations ignore identifying the “customer”, as these implementations feel that it isn’t necessary to define services in terms of business value and business results.

I recently completed a Humanising IT™ [i] masterclass led by Katrina MacDermid and Wesley Eugene.   During that class, we discussed how so many ITSM implementations, despite the best of intentions,  fall into the “who is the customer?” trap. The Humanising IT approach cuts through this confusion with a simple, but powerful, distinction between the roles of the customer and the user[ii]. The customer is the person deriving value from business services. The user is the person using technology to deliver value to the customer.

Taking this concept of user and customer one step further renders an interesting proposition. IT delivers products and services to a user, who then delivers business value and results to a customer. Is this the reason ITSM is failing your customers?

Why ITSM implementations often fail customers

I must admit that this is a different interpretation of the customer and user roles than I’ve typically followed. However, it could explain how many ITSM implementations have missed the mark when it comes to delivering business value and business results. As I’ve said before, many ITSM implementations are about managing IT, not about delivering or enabling business outcomes.  What could be possible if ITSM implementations shifted focus externally to the humans that use the services provided by the business?

But many ITSM implementations – many IT organizations – haven’t focused on the humans that use the products and services provided by the business. In fact, the products and services that IT delivers are often not built or delivered with humans in mind. Procedures used by IT are often IT-focused, not business-focused. The performance targets and measures for these products and services are defined by IT, not by the people that use the products and services. IT designs products focused on technology “wow factors” (as defined by IT) and less on the people that will be using them.

And because the focus is on IT, and not on the customer, the associated ITSM implementation is basically used to set expectations for the user. Even in that situation, those expectations are defined by IT, usually with little to no input or agreement from users.

How human-centered design can help

The correlation between employee (or user) experience and customer experience has been long established: when organizations enable better experiences for employees (“users”), employees in turn provide better experiences for customers.

When employees feel valued, engaged, empowered, and supported, they are more likely to go the “extra mile” for customers. When employees have the right technologies and solutions, they can resolve customer issues quickly and creatively. Positive employee experiences foster empathy and collaboration, which employees pass on to customers.

What are some things that IT organizations can do to enable a better user experience?

For IT, this means providing users with intuitive and streamlined processes, systems, and products, built with the user in mind. This means listening – and acting on – user feedback. This means providing empathetic support of users.

In other words, make the experience with IT a humanized experience. And the best way for IT to deliver a humanized experience for the user is to include the user as part of the development of solution designs – a core principle of human-centered design.

But getting users involved in solution design is often not so easy. First, it requires a mindset shift within IT to focus first on solving problems, not implementing solutions and technology. Convincing non-IT managers to participate in solution design and decision making can be a challenge. Many non-IT managers are reluctant to allocate resources without a clear return on investment or to take ownership of solution designs. IT often struggles to communicate in non-technical terms, and users often lack the technical understanding needed to contribute to solution design discussions. This results in communication gaps, making it difficult to translate user needs into technology requirements. There are often differences in priorities between IT and users; what’s important to IT may not have the same weight with users. Finally, an organization’s culture may get in the way. If an organization values traditional, hierarchical structures and predictable outcomes, the organization may be hesitant to have users participate in solution designs as it can introduce expected feedback or challenging of existing assumptions.

Three things IT (and ITSM) can do to stop failing the customer

Here are three actions that IT – and ITSM – organizations can take to stop failing the customer.

  • Cultivate an “experience” culture – Promote a culture that values and celebrates collaboration, empathy, and continual learning[iii]. Culture change happens a step at a time, so persistence pays off. When users participate in a solution design, publicize it. Share what was learned. Talk about how the new solution enabled positive employee experiences.
  • Map the internal user journey – An internal user journey map is a visual representation of how employees interact within an organization, including the user’s actions, thoughts, and emotions. From an ITSM perspective, identify when users interact with IT systems, processes, and tools to achieve a specific result. Doing this will identify pain points and improvement opportunities with those systems, processes, and tools.
  • Map the customer journey – Like an internal user journey map, a customer journey map depicts how customers interact with an organization, from initial awareness to post-purchased. Like an internal user journey map, the customer journey map will help identify improvement opportunities for the organization. But the benefit doesn’t stop there for IT and ITSM. Not only does this help IT (and related ITSM practices) understand the customer journey, but also helps IT develop empathy regarding user and customer interactions.

As organizations continue to journey further into the digital economy, a humanized customer experience will become a competitive differentiator. IT organizations, and their associated ITSM implementations, must embrace the benefits of adopting human-centered design in developing solutions. Involving users in solution development results in more humanized outcomes that improve both the employee and customer experiences.

[i] Humanising IT is a trademark of HIT Global.

[ii] Katrina Macdermid, “Human-centred design for IT service management”, Norwich, TSO, 2022, p. 30.

[iii] “Engaged employees Transform Customer Experience. Here’s Why”, https://www.reworked.co/employee-experience/engaged-employees-transform-customer-experience-heres-why/ Retrieved June, 2025.

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Service Management

Why your ITSM house of cards is a bad deal for your business

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Is your ITSM implementation like a house of cards, prone to fail with the slightest disturbance?  Here’s some examples:

  • A request for change that isn’t appropriately vetted yet is implemented within the live environment. Subsequently, that implemented change results in an extended outage of a critical business system.
  • Service interruptions are characterized by frantic efforts to restore service, cause analysis exercises that produce more theater than substance, and lost opportunities for improvement.
  • A seemingly simple service request that requires extraordinary effort and time to fulfill.
  • An IT organization that is surprised when the failure of a third party’s product or service cripples the business.

ITSM, done well, delivers effective and efficient services and practices based on the use of technology.  Done well, ITSM connects IT efforts and technology investments to business results and strategy.

Instead, what many ITSM implementations produce (or reinforce) is siloed behavior, disjointed delivery efforts, lack of transparency, and poor end-user satisfaction. Further exasperating the situation is that in many cases, IT doesn’t even understand how what it does enables business results and value realization.

Why does bad ITSM happen within good IT organizations?

Every IT organization has talented people who are knowledgeable, smart, and have outstanding technical skills. These people are motivated to be the absolute best that they can be and are driven to  succeed. Good ITSM should augment the efforts of these talented people and enhance the overall performance of the IT organization. ITSM should help the IT organization become a valued, respected, and competitive differentiator for a business.

Sadly, this is not the case with many IT organizations. Many implementations have fallen short of achieving the benefits of good ITSM and wasted the talents and efforts of people within IT because the foundational elements needed for success are missing. What are some attributes of a “house of cards”  ITSM implementation?

  • Taking only a “technology-first” approach – While having the appropriate tools are important, good ITSM doesn’t result only from the implementation of technology. With a technology-first approach, ITSM thinking becomes limited to the capabilities of the technology, and not how ITSM should meet the needs of the business.
  • No alignment to organizational strategy – ITSM implementation is about IT, not about how IT efforts and provided technologies enable the achievement of business goals and objectives. Other than justifying the organization’s investment in the selected technology, there is no business case that was developed to help executives recognize the value of the investments in ITSM.
  • No shared and agreed understanding of ITSM benefits – Some organizations believe that ITSM is just something “that the service desk does” for processing a user request or managing an incident. Making a bad situation worse is that many within IT think that ITSM has nothing to do with the work that they are doing.

How did this happen?

There are several reasons why ITSM is no more than a house of cards for many organizations.

Many ITSM implementations suffer from short-term thinking, prioritizing technology implementation over business value and employee experience, or even worse, prioritizing internal IT concerns over business results.

A house of cards ITSM implementation is often the result of inconsistent processes and a lack of governance, exasperated by poorly designed, implemented, and unenforced policies.  As a result, different parts of the IT organization manage its work differently, making transparency into IT difficult.

In most fragile implementations, ITSM was treated as an IT initiative, not a business initiative.  Had business stakeholders been involved from the beginning, ITSM would be business-oriented, with reports and measures that matter. Instead, ITSM became a layer of bureaucracy for interacting with IT.

Regardless of how it happened, there’s been no reason for senior business management to care about ITSM – until now.

Why business executives need to care

Historically, many senior business executives have paid little attention to service management – and understandably so. Reports contained data that had no meaning to executives. Performance metrics produced by IT said one thing, but end-users told a vastly different story regarding their experiences with technology and processes. ITSM was viewed simply as something being done at the service desk. With so many foundational elements missing, many ITSM implementations gave executives little reason to care.

But times are changing – and changing fast.

Businesses are rapidly and increasingly relying on technology to drive the business –  and the customer experience – to new horizons.  With ever increasing frequency, customers are interacting with technology, such as intelligent automation, chatbots, natural language processing, and generative AI, and not with humans.

But without good ITSM, how can an organization ensure that technology is delivering the desired value and outcomes needed by both the business and its customers? There are many known cases (including the UK’s NHS IT program[i], Canada’s Phoenix Pay System[ii], and Knight Capital Group software deployment[iii]) where businesses that ignored good service management practices and have experienced significant and embarrassing failures.

The fact is that today’s digitally driven businesses require good ITSM for business success. The question that was usually never answered remains – how will your ITSM implementation support your business’ strategy?

Today is a good day to prepare for the ITSM of tomorrow

Good ITSM is more relevant today than ever for modern, digital businesses. Here are three steps for moving ITSM from a house of cards to a reliable and solid business capability.

  • Develop a business capability map. A business capabilities map is a visual tool used to depict what a business does, not how it does it. A business capability describes the capacity, materials, and expertise an organization has or needs to complete its work.[iv] One of the things that makes a business capability so interesting from an ITSM perspective is that capabilities have outcomes.
  • Conduct an ITSM capability assessment. Not to be confused with a maturity assessment, a capability assessment evaluates the organization’s service management abilities, capacity, and skills. Do not limit this assessment to IT operations – look at ITSM capabilities holistically, from strategy through design, development, transition, and continual improvement.
  • Do a gap analysis between the business capability map and the ITSM capability assessment. What areas of business capability are well-supported by good ITSM practices? Where are the gaps between business capabilities and ITSM capabilities? What are the impacts of those gaps? What needs to be done differently from an ITSM perspective to meet the demands and requirements of those business capabilities?

Stop relying on an ITSM approach that is built as a house of cards. Completing the above steps will start your ITSM implementation on an incredible transformation to strategic capability, both for the organization and for IT.

[i] Asgarkhani, M. (2022). Failed tech deployment initiatives: Is poor IT governance to blame? European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance, 18(1), 524–528. https://doi.org/10.34190/ecmlg.18.1.728

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] https://dougseven.com/2014/04/17/knightmare-a-devops-cautionary-tale/

[iv] https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/a-quick-guide-to-business-capability-maps , Retrieved February 2024.

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Service Management

Are your improvement efforts starving for continuous feedback?

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In my blog, “Four ways that organizations have dehumanized IT – and how to fix it”, I suggested  that organizations should “ditch those satisfaction surveys”.  Instead of satisfaction surveys, I recommended that organizations should conduct face-to-face focus group meetings. Focus group meetings drive a human-to-human discussion which typically uncovers insights into improvement opportunities.

When I later posted the blog on LinkedIn, Sami Kallio, my friend and CEO of Happy Signals commented, “…don’t you feel that that you should do both [distribute and collect satisfaction surveys and conduct focus group meetings]?”

Well, yes. Sami is correct. Organizations should do both – distribute and collect satisfaction surveys and conduct focus group meetings.

But in my experience, many organizations just don’t do a good job with their customer satisfaction surveys. One of the challenges with these surveys is that the return rate is usually anemic at best.

But Sami’s comments made me think. Why aren’t customer satisfaction surveys effective? Is it more than just the poor quality of questions that are being asked?

Maybe it’s that organizations can’t handle the truth (sorry, couldn’t resist the movie reference), so they don’t seek it out.

Or maybe – and much more likely – organizations are not prepared for continuous feedback.

Three reasons why organizations fail with continuous feedback

Getting continuous feedback regarding an organization’s products, services, and processes is a good thing. Continuous feedback provides timely insights and uncovers opportunities for development and improvement. Continuous feedback also enhances employee engagement[i], improves communication[ii], and can lead to better decision making[iii].

So why do organizations fail with continuous feedback?

  • No formally defined approach to continual improvement. Without a formally defined approach to continual improvement, continuous feedback goes nowhere. In many organizations, continual improvement activities are ad-hoc. Even when these ad-hoc activities are performed, they are rarely tracked – and even more rarely reviewed for effectiveness.
  • No management support. Do you see the phrase “continual improvement” as an objective within a company’s mission/vision/goals (MVG) statement? If not, resources for continual improvement will be difficult to obtain. Organizations will invest in the objectives identified within MVG, which are typically focused on innovation and growth. Senior managers are incentivized to achieve the goals and objectives found within the MVG. Continual improvement, on the other hand, is usually not perceived as being innovative, and as a result, isn’t adequately funded. Paradoxically, some innovations within organizations result in an increase in technical debt, which only exacerbates the need for continual improvement.
  • Having a culture that does not value continuous feedback[iv]. In today’s rapid paced, “always on” business environment, it’s easy to overlook or put off opportunities to reinforce the value of continuous feedback. When was the last time that your department celebrated a big win? Are one-on-one meetings frequently delayed, or even worse, cancelled? Are people’s calendars double (and triple) booked? Do employees understand how their work contributes to business success? Without feedback, there can be no improvement. Leaders must instill a culture of continuous feedback – an environment that values and contributes to feedback at the personal, departmental, and organizational level.

The idea is good. The execution…not so much.

The concept of continual improvement driven by continuous feedback is a good idea. Continual improvement is simply good common sense. I believe that organizations that do not continually improve aren’t just sitting still – they are moving backwards. Why? Organizations exist in a constant state of change – business environments change, marketplaces change, regulations change, consumer needs change, technology changes, skill sets change. A formal approach to continual improvement isn’t a “nice to have”; it’s a fundamental competency for every organization to master to successfully navigate the constancy of change.

Continuous feedback provides a great way to monitor the resulting impact of these ever-evolving changes on the people and processes. Some of that impact may be readily visible to an  organization, through measures like increased contact volumes at the service desk or an increased number of incidents. But it’s more that IT measures. Quantifiable measures such as reduced profitability and revenues are also ways to gauge the business impact of the ever-evolving change.

But what about the impacts that may not be as visible? Issues like longer lead times, loss of reputation or credibility, having the wrong mix of products and service offerings, or people that haven’t received adequate training to do their jobs? Continuous feedback provides a means for capturing these issues as well.

Are you dropping the ball between feedback and improvement?

If continuous feedback is not delivering the benefits your organization needs, here are three suggestions to try.

  • Define goals for continuous feedback. When it comes to continuous feedback, are you just “checking off the box”? Or are your surveys asking meaningful questions regarding the impact of change or any friction being encountered in the respondents’ daily work? To get the answers that you need starts with defining goals for continuous feedback.
  • Ask the right questions. While rating a product, service, or support action on a numerical scale makes for some easy math, it really doesn’t render useful or insightful feedback. Think about it – when you see a restaurant review that contains written comments from the reviewer, you are better enabled to make an evaluation of that restaurant. The same idea goes for continual feedback. Asking specific open-ended questions encourages specific and more detailed feedback – feedback that can better evaluated to identify improvement opportunities.
  • Start keeping score. Review the feedback that is currently being collected to identify potential improvement opportunities. Then, for any identified improvement, define what success looks like before taking any further action. What will the impact of the improvement action be to the organization, to the consumer, and to the employee? What will be different? How should improvement be measured – in terms that makes sense to each stakeholder of the improvement.  Make the improvement even more meaningful by capturing financial, efficiency, and effectiveness measures. Providing meaningful measures and reporting for improvements help justify the next improvement – and reinforce the value of continuous feedback.

Done well, continuous feedback makes for better interactions, better processes, better products, better communications and collaboration, and better services. Defining clear objectives for  continuous feedback, asking the right questions, and tracking achievements will help overcome barriers to success with continuous feedback.

 

[i] https://www.talentquest.com/blog/how-continuous-feedback-improves-employee-engagement , Retrieved March 2025.

[ii] https://prezentium.com/effective-communication-in-the-workplace , Retrieved March 2025.

[iii] https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/heres-how-you-can-harness-benefits-team-input-before-ty13f , Retrieved March 2025.

[iv] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6-reasons-why-your-continuous-feedback-program-failing-rnm1e , Retrieved March 2025.

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Leadership, Service Management

Is your ITSM approach looking through the windshield…or at the rear-view mirror?

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“In the business world, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

Sadly, this 1991 Warren Buffet quote applies to many ITSM implementations. Why?

Because the focus of those ITSM implementations is on what has happened, instead of what is happening.

Think about it. Our respective businesses are focused on the view through the metaphorical windshield. The view through the “windshield” represents both what is happening now and the journey ahead. And while the future is unknown, businesses try to create the future by establishing goals and objectives. From a business perspective, the possibilities and opportunities for success are typically found when the organization is looking through the windshield.

Continuing the metaphor, the focus of so many ITSM implementations is the rear-view mirror – a view of what has happened. Make no mistake – trending and performance reports, monitoring tools that deliver event alerts, and recently-written knowledge articles are important contributors to good ITSM. But those reports, tools, and articles are typically inwardly focused, discussing items and topics that are relevant and meaningful only to the IT organization. In other words, those ITSM implementations are more focused on yesterday and less on the future.

The impact of always looking in the rear-view mirror

Why is the “rear-view” perspective an obstacle for ITSM implementations? I would argue that the perspective of continually looking back is not aligned with business goals and objectives. This is one of the factors between ITSM being perceived as a business enabler versus ITSM viewed as a costly expense.

It comes down to this question – what does your business perceive as “value”? Candidly, business value is rarely – if ever – found by looking in the rear-view mirror. In my experience, businesses perceive value when actions taken within the organization result in achieving business  mission, vision, goals, and objectives (MVGO). Businesses perceive value when the data captured, used, and maintained within the organization produces information that enables timely, fact-based decision-making. Businesses perceive value as innovation, responsiveness to the market, increased revenues and profitability, delivering a differentiated experience, and standing out from competitors.

Shifting the ITSM view to the windshield

Does your ITSM implementation enable your business? How does your ITSM implementation help the organization to achieve its MVGO? For many organizations, ITSM is more about IT and less about their businesses. Few organizations (in my experience) develop and maintain a service portfolio, much less a service catalog. I rarely find ITSM implementations reporting measures that relate to the business objectives; rather, most measures and reports align to internally defined IT performance targets.

I’m not suggesting that IT departments stop supporting and delivering the operational aspects of ITSM. I am suggesting, however, that ITSM implementations expand their scope to include the “windshield”. The mindset must shift from seeing ITSM as a means of control or just implementing some tool. The mindset must shift to viewing ITSM as a business enabler.

This means that ITSM implementations must become more strategic from a business perspective. Strategy is about aligning resources and efforts to achieve organizational goals – in other words, looking through the windshield, not just the rear-view mirror.

Shifting the ITSM view to the windshield

Here are some tips for shifting ITSM from just a “rear-view” mirror perspective to also include the windshield.

  • Learn the business of your business. By understanding the business, IT professionals can make informed decisions, improve their communications with non-IT colleagues and become more proactive in developing technology-based proposals for growing and improving business activities.
  • Understand how people, processes, and technology (PPT) enable business outcomes. How does (or can) people, process, and technology enable the organization to achieve its MVGO? What are the vital business functions of the organization? How does PPT enable those business functions?
  • Think and act in terms of business outcomes. How can (or does) ITSM enable or deliver the business results that impact MVGO? Having answers to this question will help shift the perspective and perception of ITSM to a more strategic and business-aligned capability.
  • Measure and report things that are relevant and meaningful to your business. Frankly, no one outside of IT cares how quickly the service desk responds to requests or how many incidents are closed. Identify, measure, and report on metrics that have an impact on the business of the business.
  • Shift SLAs from an IT operational focus to a business focus. In my experience, what many ITSM implementations call a “Service Level Agreement” (SLA) are neither agreed with anyone outside of IT, or discuss the business impacts of IT services. Unfortunately, this is an approach that is deeply engrained within many ITSM implementations. Begin the shift by working with non-IT colleagues to map a frequently followed value stream. Doing this will result in a mutual understanding of the value stream, the business drivers, and success criteria. Use this information to then document and agree a business-focused SLA for that value stream.

In many organizations, ITSM has not achieved its potential. Part of the reason for that is that those ITSM implementations are too focused on the past and only on the IT organization. What could be possible if those ITSM implementations also look ahead rather than just looking behind?

Need some help shifting your ITSM perspective from just the rear-view mirror to what is happening now and ahead?  Let Tedder Consulting and our proven and impactful approach change your ITSM environment to a business enabler.  Contact us today!

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Human Centered Design, Service Management

Four ways that organizations have dehumanized IT – and how to fix it

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Organizations have dehumanized IT.

It’s not a question of “has it happened at our organization?” It is the recognition that it has happened.

Despite the investments organizations have made in technologies and process designs intended to solve business problems, the critical component of the solution has been overlooked. That component? The humans that are interacting with those technologies and process designs.

Four ways organizations have dehumanized  IT

How have IT organizations become dehumanized? Here are a few attributes of a dehumanized IT organization.

  • IT associates think and work in terms of a “ticket.” An IT-related issue is treated as a faceless and voiceless number, rather than as an issue that impacts the productivity of a fellow colleague. IT masks its interactions with the consumer behind technologies, such as email or messaging through a service management tool and neglects the opportunity to connect and empathize with the consumer.
  • IT sends out generic, post-interaction surveys, rather than host face-to-face discussions with consumers. Exasperating the situation is that these surveys typically ask the same questions over and over, oblivious to the humans receiving those surveys. Furthermore, what little data that is captured on those surveys is rarely reviewed, much less actioned.
  • IT organizations do not conduct regular service level review meetings, much less have real SLAs. A service level review meeting should be a great opportunity for face-to-face discussions with consumers and key stakeholders to review service level agreements (SLA) to determine if IT products, services, and performance meet business needs. But what many organizations call a “SLA” is nothing more than some defined configuration parameters used in a service management system. Even worse, those parameters are defined with no input from the consumers served by IT.
  • IT organizations develop new solutions with no involvement from the consumers that will be using those solutions. The frequent approach to new IT solution development is to conduct a few meetings with sponsors and key stakeholders to gather their requirements and gain commitment on budget and resources. Any consumers that will be using the new solution are usually not included in those meetings. In many cases, the “solution” is jammed into an already in-use technology that often is neither fit for purpose or use.

Why is humanizing IT so important

There are many reasons why humanizing IT is so important. First, it’s well known that happy employees deliver better customer service.  A humanized IT approach delivers better human-centered designs and intuitive user-friendly systems and interfaces.

This recent research journal article discusses many benefits that result from humanizing technology teams.  A benefit that may not be obvious is enhanced employee satisfaction and retention. By creating a more human-centric work environment, IT organizations can improve employee well-being, leading to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover rates.

Humanizing IT can also differentiate an organization’s products and services in the marketplace. This recent article discusses how companies that think that business decisions are taken solely on ROI and impact to the bottom are fooling themselves. Embedding human-centered designs within an organization’s products and services encourages emotional connections in B2B relationships, which drives brand loyalty and customer retention.

Enter human centered design

In a world where digitization, automation, and artificial intelligence are driving businesses to invest increasingly in technology, the more that the consumers of that technology value human interactions and connections.[i]   This is where human centered design (HCD) can help.

HCD is an approach for problem solving that starts with understanding what consumers need and arrives at a place where innovative solutions address those needs.[ii]  HCD is about solving problems, not implementing solutions. This means that effective HCD requires a mindset shift within IT from ”problem solver” to “listener and learner”.  By using the HCD approach, IT gains a better appreciation and understanding of consumer challenge, builds better connections with the consumers of solutions, and drives better trust and communication with consumers.

Challenges

While embracing the HCD approach has numerous benefits, organizations are often faced with challenges in adoption.

First, many organizations take a “technology-first” mindset. Rather than first understanding the end-user perspective, organizations identify and implement a technology that seemingly addresses a business problem. On the surface, this “technology first” approach may seem like an easier and quicker fix for business and consumer challenges. But the reality is that technology will only be as good and well-received as the consumers are able to use those technologies easily and successfully.

Convincing senior management can also be a challenge. Traditional metrics, such as efficiency and ROI, may not capture the value of improved user experiences.[iii] Some leaders are concerned that becoming human-centered comes at the expense of ignoring business needs.[iv]

Overcoming deeply entrenched ways of working can be problematic. Organizations have developed ways of working that have evolved over longer periods of time. Employees have been and continue to be evaluated  and rewarded based on these ways of working.

Take some first steps for rehumanizing IT

Adopting a human-centered design approach within IT will not happen overnight. But every journey begins with a few steps. Here are a three steps for starting to rehumanize IT.

  • Ditch those satisfaction surveys. Instead, conduct regular focus group meetings to not only capture consumer feedback, but get direct face-to-face input regarding improvement opportunities.
  • Conduct Gemba walks. Take a page from the Lean methodology and go to where work is being done. Observe, not evaluate, how consumers are interacting with technology. Show respect to consumers by listening to their concerns.
  • Begin participatory designing. Participatory design is a core concept of HCD. It means involving the consumer at the beginning of design activities. Consumers sometimes find it difficult to articulate what their challenges and problems are until they see, feel, and experience those challenges. Involving the consumer from the beginning of design efforts will result in solutions that are more user-friendly, intuitive, and accepted.

HCD can a be a transformative approach for businesses and the IT organizations within those businesses, especially when it comes to the implementation and use of technology. Starting with and including the humans that will be using those technologies in the design of products and services is the key to success in this digital age.

[i] https://www.thinklikeapublisher.com/humanizing-content-as-an-answer-to-ai/ ,Retrieved January 2025.

[ii] https://aircall.io/blog/customer-experience/10-benefits-of-human-centered-design/  Retrieved January 2025.

[iii] https://www.lusidea.com/blog/challenges-in-adopting-human-centric-design-practices , Retrieved January 2025.

[iv] https://www.hrdconnect.com/2023/10/06/human-experience-management-enabling-business-performance-through-human-centered-design , Retrieved January 2025.

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