What is ITSM? A Complete Guide to IT Service Management

ITSM stands for IT Service Management, or less often Information Technology Service Management, and it is how IT teams design, deliver, manage, and improve end-to-end IT services for employees, clients, or customers. 

This ITSM definition emphasizes an important core concept for the practice: the belief that IT should operate as a service through processes, practices, and tools.

ITIL 4 defines it as a “set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services.” This definition is similar to the first one but emphasizes the focus on value.

Let’s break it down with an example. Imagine you work at a company, and your computer suddenly stops working. You contact the IT department, and they quickly help you fix the problem so you can get back to work.

This process of managing and resolving your issue is at the core of ITSM. In this example, fixing the laptop is one of the IT team's many IT services.

Why is IT Service Management important?

The benefits of IT Service Management can positively impact your entire company: 

• It leads to efficiency and productivity gains.
• It ensures that IT services align with business goals.
• It reduces costs.
• It improves service quality.

By adopting ITSM practices, companies can better manage their IT infrastructure, streamline processes, and deliver consistent, reliable services to internal and external users.

ITSM processes and practices

ITIL 4 shifted the paradigm from processes to 34 practices, divided into:

• 14 General Management practices.
• 17 Service Management practices.
• 3 Technical Management practices.

For the purpose of this guide, I’ll focus on the core IT Service Management processes and practices.

Incident Management

Incident Management seeks to develop efficient processes for identifying, analyzing, and resolving incidents promptly, avoiding service downtime or disruption.

It follows a structured process to identify, log, categorize, prioritize, investigate, and work out incidents while ensuring clear user communication. It leverages service desk software’s automation, predefined workflows, and escalation capabilities.

IT Asset Management

IT Asset Management tracks and manages IT assets throughout their lifecycle to optimize their value, ensure compliance, and support decision-making. 

It covers hardware, software, cloud resources, and other technology assets, providing visibility into their status, value, and dependencies. Effective ITAM helps organizations make data-driven decisions, reduce risks, and maximize the value of their IT investments. 

Change Enablement

Change Enablement (formerly known as Change Management) is the ITSM practice that ensures standardized procedures are followed to plan, assess, and implement changes in the IT environment with minimal risk and disruption. 

Effective Change Management improves service reliability, reduces failed changes, and enhances business agility. It categorizes changes based on risk and urgency – such as standard, normal, and emergency changes – while maintaining clear communication and documentation to support compliance and continuous improvement.

Problem Management

The Problem Management practice identifies and manages the root causes of incidents to prevent recurrence.

A successful Problem Management strategy reduces downtime, improves service quality, and enhances user experience. It involves both reactive problem resolution – investigating major incidents after they occur – and proactive problem prevention, identifying and mitigating risks before they cause disruptions.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management’s purpose is to capture, organize, and share knowledge to improve decision-making and service delivery. It ensures that accurate, relevant, and up-to-date knowledge is easily accessible to IT teams and end-users, reducing resolution times and preventing repeated issues.

The Knowledge Management practice enhances efficiency by promoting self-service, reducing reliance on specialized expertise, and fostering collaboration. It includes structured processes for creating, reviewing, and maintaining knowledge articles, ensuring continuous improvement and alignment with business needs.

Service Level Management

Service Level Management’s main goal is defining, monitoring, and reviewing agreed service levels between IT providers and customers to ensure they meet business expectations.

It establishes Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that outline performance targets, responsibilities, and expected service quality to improve transparency, align IT services with business needs, and enhance customer satisfaction. 

Service Request Management

Service Request Management handles user requests for standard services, such as access to applications, password resets, or hardware provisioning. It follows predefined workflows to ensure requests are fulfilled efficiently and consistently while minimizing disruption.

This IT Service Management practice improves user satisfaction by streamlining approvals, automating routine tasks, and providing self-service options. It distinguishes service requests from incidents and ensures that each request is handled according to business priorities and compliance requirements.

How to implement ITSM in an organization

The general steps to implement ITSM in an organization involve the following:

1. Assess your current IT situation.
2. Select the essential stakeholders to endorse the process.
3. Build an ITSM strategy.
4. Design the ITSM processes.
5. Implement the processes.
6. Monitor and improve.
7. Mature the ITSM practice.

Let’s take a closer look at them.

1.Building the IT Service Management strategy

The first thing you need to implement IT Service Management in your organization is a strategy that aligns IT services with business objectives. 

And this is a two-part process: situation assessment and framework selection.

On the one hand, you need to assess your business’ current IT capabilities, identify gaps, and determine how ITSM can improve service delivery and efficiency. This phase involves setting clear goals, such as reducing downtime, improving user experience, or enhancing IT governance.

Additionally, you need to choose the key stakeholders and executives to get the necessary buy-in and point of view before developing a plan.

On the other hand, you need to evaluate whether you want to follow a framework (or frameworks) to use as best practice to guide you through the process (jump to this section).

Though these are not mandatory to do ITSM, it’s best if you decide early on where you stand. Once you have this settled, it’s time to build a strategy. Focus on what you want to do, how you want to do it, and spread the plan in time.

“We’ve gone through our initial stabilization effort. We’ve almost completed rolling out our first phase of the transformation program at JAMF. And that was really focused on the IT support, the processes, and the platforms that are part of that – including traditional service desk and support metrics, processes, and ticket handling.

[...] This is a two-year roadmap with three phases. We’ve focused first on our immediate family. Next, we’ll move to extended families to bring them to the tiered support modeling and focus on their pain points from a process perspective. And then it goes to friends, meaning the rest of JAMF.”

Melissa Dunham, IT Support and Services Senior Director at JAMF, on Ticket Volume podcast. 

2.Implementing IT Service Management

Once the strategy is in place, you should focus on establishing ITSM processes, starting with core practices like Incident Management, Change Management, and Service Request Management. 

Standardized workflows should be defined to ensure consistency, accountability, and efficiency in service operations. Furthermore, training IT teams and end-users on new processes is essential to drive adoption and minimize resistance.

ITSM implementation should follow a phased approach, prioritizing critical services and continuously refining processes based on performance metrics and feedback. 

If you need more guidance, this ITSM implementation checklist might be useful.

Establishing a service desk as a central point of contact can streamline service delivery, improve communication, and enhance user support. Regular monitoring and reporting ensure that IT Service Management processes align with evolving business needs.

3. ITSM maturity

After your processes are in place, it’s time for continuous improvement. You can leverage ITSM maturity models to assess and plan your Service Management evolution at this stage.

For instance, you could move from reactive to proactive IT support, leaving behind the break-fix mindset. Or you could implement ITSM automation to speed up processes and avoid manual repetitive tasks. 

Maturity assessments often use models like CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) or ITIL’s ITSM Maturity Model, which provide a structured way to identify gaps. The evaluation should cover core IT Service Management areas such as Incident Management, Change Management, and Service Level Management to determine where improvements are needed.

ITSM examples

Let’s see all we’ve covered so far in action.

• Peoples Bank, a community bank in Washington state, leverages ITSM to move away from email requests, enhance reporting to optimize department performance, and even shift from ITSM to ESM to 24 business areas into its service desk, which turned them into a single full support department.
• Mastellone, a key player in the dairy industry in Latin America, uses ITSM to provide their users with autonomy through the self-service portal and ITSM workflows to replace repetitive tasks. These two actions alone help them save 500 hours per year.
• Arcos Dorados’ ITSM implementation helps them centralize operations by consolidating five help desks into a single platform and offering self-service capabilities to empower users to resolve common issues independently (which reduced requests by 20%).

In addition, you could take advantage of ITSM software capabilities to build dedicated workflows for some of the above processes and standardize them. For instance, a Change Management workflow can set the necessary steps once a request for change is submitted. Or an offboarding workflow could trigger the mandatory actions to retrieve IT assets and user permissions.

IT Service Management software

As the examples show, ITSM’s holistic approach to IT services makes software essential for its successful implementation. 

The market offers a wide range of IT Service Management tools depending on the organization’s needs and size. In general, they provide a set of capabilities to help organizations manage their IT services effectively, including service requests, incidents, changes, and problems.

The service desk is the golden rule for ITSM software, as it often provides businesses with all they need to implement ITSM. Some critical aspects to look for when searching for service desk software include:

• An easy-to-use interface that ensures fast implementation and a high level of adoption among end-users and agents from multiple departments alike.
• No-code capabilities to avoid having a dedicated team just to configure ITSM workflows, processes, and everything the tool requires.
• High customization to adapt to your company’s specific needs and scale when needed.

If you need guidance on the selection process, you can always search for ITIL-certified tools (PinkVERIFIED and PeopleCert provide you with verified lists) or check the Gartner Market Guide for IT Service Management Tools.

It’s important to note that the choice of service desk software will affect your whole ITSM strategy, so you need to research carefully before deciding. InvGate Service Management was designed with all these capabilities, needs, and aspects in mind. Plus, it’s ITIL-certified and featured in the Gartner Market Guide. 

InvGate Service Management is currently being used in organizations across more than 60 countries to optimize their ITSM processes thanks to its self-service options, no-code workflows, multiple help desk capabilities, and AI features.

ITSM certifications

If you’re looking for formal guidance, you can opt for an IT Service Management certification. 

The top ITSM certifications include:
 

• ITIL certifications - These are the most common credentials in the field and offer a comprehensive overview of the ITIL framework. The tiered system includes the ITIL 4 Foundation, ITIL 4 Managing Professional, ITIL 4 Strategic Leader, and ITIL 4 Master certifications.
• CompTIA ITSM certifications - CompTIA is a well-known tech association that provides certifications for beginner IT professionals and aspiring and seasoned network and cybersecurity specialists.
• HDI ITSM certifications - HDI’s educational efforts are oriented to Customer Service and Service Management. For that reason, they offer certifications focused on roles, such as the HDI Customer Service Representative (HDI-CSR), HDI Support Center Analyst (HDI-SCA), or HDI Desktop Advanced Support Technician (HDI-DAST).

3 most popular ITSM frameworks

ITSM frameworks provide structured approaches and best practices for delivering IT services that align with business needs. Understanding them is essential for organizations because each one offers unique methodologies.

As for when and how to use them, I adhere to Marcus Bause’s approach. The VP of Product at PeopleCert assures that, “No one framework alone will never answer all questions. And when we talk about everything that could happen in an IT organization, or when you’re taking a wider scope in an enterprise, one framework alone will never be able to cover all these discussions, all this scope.” 

So, it’s better to mix and match to adapt the framework or frameworks to your specific needs.

That being said, the three most common ITSM frameworks are ITIL, COBIT, and ISO/IEC 20000. Let’s see them in more detail.

ITIL

ITIL is the most widely adopted framework. It provides a comprehensive set of best practices for managing IT services throughout their lifecycle, from strategy and design to operation and continuous improvement. 

ITIL focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of the business.

COBIT

COBIT is a framework developed by ISACA for IT Governance and Management. It provides a set of practices for managing and controlling IT operations, ensuring that IT aligns with business goals, manages risks, and complies with regulations.

ISO/IEC 20000

ISO/IEC 20000 is an international standard for IT Service Management. It specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an ITSM system. Organizations that comply with ISO/IEC 20000 can be certified, demonstrating their commitment to high-quality IT service delivery.

ITSM experts to keep an eye on

To finish up and help you expand your ITSM information sources, I’ve compiled a list of the most relevant ITSM experts out there that are actively engaging and sharing their knowledge online:

• Matt Beran - A bit biased but of course I’m starting this list with InvGate’s Product Specialist and Ticket Volume podcast host! Matt has over 20 years of experience in the field, is a renowned speaker, and loves sharing what he knows in his LinkedIn page.
• Claire Agutter - Claire is a great source for all things SIAM-related. She’s a well-known speaker who spreads the benefits of Service Integration and Management wherever she goes – even Ticket Volume!
• Rob England - Finishing off with one of the most authoritative voices in the industry. Rob has over 20 years of experience in the field and a unique perspective that always challenges general ITSM knowledge. Just take a look at the most recent wisdom he shared on our podcast!