Humanising IT—Time to Kill Self-Centric IT

Humanising IT is becoming a hot topic among the Service Management community, and there are several very good reasons for it: 

The statistics above are unlikely to make one think twice when presented individually. However, when combined, they start painting a picture of the future of the business landscape and give Service Management leaders clues about how to prepare for it.  

Humanising Service Delivery is one of the hottest topics in the industry, but what does it mean? 

It’s the application of human-centric design to drive cultural, process, and technological change in Service Management. This encourages proactive communication, builds empathy, and optimises service accessibility, trust, and security while considering ethics and encouraging collaboration and continuous improvement. 

If the above seems like “fluffy talk”, let’s explore further, considering some key audiences benefitting from it: 

Humanising IT – Business View 

It all starts with the business and its point of view. At the end of the day, they are paying for the services delivered and, therefore, demand a good return on investment (ROI). As Mark Smalley argues, Value = Benefits – Costs. While the costs may be clear on both sides, the value definition often differs by the business and the service management.  

One key consideration for Service Management leadership is understanding what drives the business, its goals, and what the key stakeholders and budget holders care about on both company and individual levels (e.g. career promotion).  

In her talk The Unfair Expectations of ITSM, Katrina Macdermid argues that “the role of Service Management is not to design, consider, and manage UX but to manage technology and automate business transactions.” Whilst controversial for ITIL purists, it shifts the focus from outputs to business outcomes, helping Service Management leaders to focus on delivering what the business expects of them rather than sticking to the comfortable cocoon of IT jargon and SLAs. 

When building a business case to get a budget to help humanise IT, what are the key considerations? 

To some Service Management Leaders, the above may seem too abstract when connecting it with their day-to-day job. What questions should they ask themselves and their teams to start understanding the value they need to bring and identify the gaps in their service delivery? What do we ask to start humanising IT from the business point of view? 

Indeed, as Peter Drucker famously said: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” 

The measurement will inevitably fall into the arms of the technology & transformation leaders, whether in IT or other teams such as HR. Currently, most organisations send out a survey either at the end of each ticket or once or twice a year, typically receiving somewhere around 3-7% response rate. Those who respond are usually the extremes - very unhappy and very happy customers/end-users, meaning up to 93% of opinions are not heard, processed, or actioned. Moreover, if all end users were to respond suddenly, there would be no capacity to process the quantitative and qualitative data or to do anything with it. This is where many customer-centric initiatives fail – high dependency on human resources and manual processing and why the market has been booming with DEX and ITXM platforms, tools, and features that automate the vast majority of the process.  

Human-centric IT, XLAs and ITXM are clearly making their way through the market, shifting in MoSCoW Requests for Procurement (RFPs) from “Could have” to “Must have” as more and more leaders begin to understand its key value in removing the Watermelon Effect.   

Despite what the vendors may tell you, even if you get the most-awarded, Gartner-approved technology, you will not realise the full (if any) value from it. Humanising IT requires a cultural and process shift, a structured approach with a clear vision, milestones, and experienced advisors to help you successfully design and deliver continuously improved service experiences. It is why Paul Wilkinson cannot retire fully – his set of ABC cards and the 8-Field Model, are just as relevant as they were two decades ago because we apply the Continual Ignorement Model (Pressure, Deny, Complain, Apply) instead of focusing on customer value, collaboration, flow, continual learning and improving. How many Service Management leaders can say they allow IT to spend every Monday with end users in different parts of the organisation? 

As Neil Keating pointed out at the itSMF Czech Republic conference earlier this year, if you do not speak to your customers, your designed service will likely deliver very different value from what you and the customer expected. Opening those communication channels, aligning the language, and building rapport…all take more time and effort than acquiring a piece of shiny new software, but they are the key to ROI. Perspective is key to success. 

Source: Neil Keating, How to Successfully Implement XLAs – Real-Life Lessons 

Humanising IT – Agent View 

The agents are the often-forgotten audience to consider when driving continual improvement in Service Management.  

As the world shifts toward the Experience Economy, we must not forget to bring the agents on the journey and ensure they understand what good looks like. If they were professionally brought up in a highly SLA-focused environment, they are likely the ones unintentionally amplifying the Watermelon Effect. However, at the same time, they are your key partners in turning that watermelon into a kiwi when XLAs are introduced. 

How? 

You may notice that most of the above has nothing to do with tools but with culture and processes. While the Service Management leadership is busy replacing ESM platforms, understanding how to increase productivity with GenAI-powered Virtual Agents, Summarisation, or adopting NLU/NLP for reporting back to the business, they are losing their biggest assets: the talent working for them.  

Luckily, organisations that have successfully introduced Human-Centric Design and Continuously Improved XLAs into their work practices have experienced the cultural shift and its immense benefits.  

Source: www.HappySignals.com 

Humanising IT – Customer/End-user View 

Did you get a green light from the business to start Humanising your Service Delivery? Great! It all begins with where we are now. Understand your business, your agents, and your customers/end-users. Hand up if you are guilty of designing your experiences for a single user, not personas.  

Do they like to resolve tech issues themselves, or do they prefer to call for help as soon as they lose their productivity? The end-users should define and self-assess each of these types so that the agents know how to approach the conversation best.