IT Service Management Strategies Every Startup Needs

IT Service Management (ITSM) and ITIL should not just be for large organisations – where start-ups need to take the “less is more” approach to Service Management (e.g. Incident, Service Request, Problem and Change), utilising only the essential parts to deliver maximum agility and customer value.  Where there must be still some process, i.e. “rigour without the rigmarole”, but not so much as to restrict the rate of change required to grow the business or to develop new products. 

This is especially relevant if the start-up involves supporting customers and/or there is a need to provide a similar service to their internal teams.  Any IT Service Management solution has to support innovation and agility, where it must not hinder the rapid rate of change required for the User and Customer Experience (UX and CX), especially as this may be your customer’s only interaction with your company.

Service Management for Start-ups; rigour without the rigmarole by building for now to scale for later

Rigour without the rigmarole

Without a clear focus and strategy for IT Service Management (ITSM), your customers and internal users may experience frequent outages with no way of tracking or reporting on incidents or changes. There may also be limited evidence of any value gained from the services provided to your customers, or insights into how your product is performing, therefore keeping your Product Managers/CEO in the dark as to how customers feel about both the User and Customer Experiences.

IT Service Management (ITSM) is critical in bringing enough processes to the way Operational and Product teams manage their products once launched, but not so many processes as to hamper the pace they need to adapt or grow to meet the market.  There are a number of IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions in the marketplace. Gartner (August 2015) details them in their magic quadrant (below). It’s a great place to start if you are stuck on what solutions are available.

Agility is critical in the market

Critical to any solution should be the focus on agility, such as how you can automate your IT Service Management (ITSM) processes. For example, workflow automation for change management, where, based on certain types of changes selected a particular level of approval is required (technical, business and/or change manager), all of this could be automated through a system-generated email or via a mobile app. All changes should then be added to a forward schedule of change once approved.  Having high levels of automation will allow the turnaround of changes/releases from creation to approval within minutes, which could be critical for a start-up’s product development to remain agile and adaptable to market forces.

Ease of adoption

When adopting IT Service Management (ITSM) within a digital world (which requires a fast rate of change with processes that support agility within the solution chosen), it must also be easily adopted by your technology teams and customers alike.  A Service Management solution should also be able to be adopted by internal teams, where it will support internal service requests and incidents.  This will then give your teams the ability to easily request access to systems or log incidents with the internal support teams, either via email or a self-service portal.

Reporting is critical

To further demonstrate a positive (or not) User Experience of your product/services, your IT Service Management solution should provide extensive reporting on key metrics (for example, NPS, percentage of SLAs met, number of changes/incidents created, as well as tracking outage times).  Adopting a Service Management strategy up front will allow any start-up to keep valuable customer data, therefore allowing for more informed decisions on potential changes to product features/road-maps.   If you cannot easily demonstrate a positive or otherwise User Experience (UX) when dealing with your organisation, have you chosen the right service management solution(s)?

Benefits of adopting IT Service Management (ITSM) for Start-ups:

• Platform stability through Change processes and a forward schedule of change.
• Build for now, scale for later.
• Collaboration (such as DevOps or cross-functional Scrum teams).
• Reporting on customer experience (CX).
• Informing product development of potential bugs (as logged by your customers).
• Greater visibility with all incidents and requests logged equals Customer insights.
• Clear reporting of value created.
• Enough process to allow agility through automation.
• Positive Customer Experience due to the ease with which customers can engage.

What IT Service Management (ITSM) tool have you used successfully (detailing what made it a success)? Leave a comment below. Want to scale your startup the smart way? Read our other expert tips on using IT service management to grow fast, stay agile, and keep your customers happy.