IT Service Management Solutions company, Quintica, takes it one step further: It is easy enough - or at least easier than most might think - to get started because there are logical ways to split up those first steps to implementation.

Right, you might think, but how do you take an ITSM strategy and remove the perceived complexity from it?

It we look at it realistically, these ITSM best practices have been around for more than 20 years; albeit in a different form. So, we have had a number of years to take the theory and turn it into tangible practice.

ITSM in its simplest form is about taking all the knowledge we have gained and putting it to best practice.

History revisited

For almost 40 years people have been implementing best practices decades ago processes such as change management were used in mainframe environments nothing was ever changed on the fly, and IT practitioners worked in an organised manner.

The bottom line is that engineering principles of yesteryear are still very relevant today. OK, so quite rightly you might ask why does it then feel so overly complex? For one, the advent of the PC has turned most people into IT specialists; secondly we have to relearn those basic disciplines.

What is it really boils down to that we need to take a back-to-basics approach. ITSM is ultimately about enforcing a management style instilling those long-forgotten disciplines throughout the organisation.

Indeed, it is like bringing up children an organisation needs to walk before it can run and the same goes for managing its infrastructure. Companies first need to take small steps; they need to get the process right before they can start to automate their systems.

A good example is accounting, most people have forgotten how much manual work used to go into it. The same goes for ITSM, a lot of people have unlearned those basic principles.

A real understanding

What successful ITSM practice requires is a real understanding of the processes that enable it. We have become so dependant on automation that we have forgotten what really needs to be done.

If we do not achieve the primary objective we can expect, without sounding too melodramatic, eminent failure. Here it is also important to evaluate what has been going wrong and to rectify it.

There is also no all-perfect method; it takes time, evaluation and systematic implementation falling back on bad habits will simply hamper the entire process.

Indeed, ITSM is a mindset, followed up with a set of practices that make processes reliable, dependable and traceable. It is all about making sure that IT people are thinking about the business instead of just about the technology.

As ITSM practitioners we have a wealth of knowledge that starts as far back as mainframe environments. We have proven and certified frameworks such as ITIL and ISO 20 000, and, ultimately have to the ability to take organisations through those first, small steps.

In the end it is all about eradicating the bad habits and starting with the basics. It might sound a bit of a cliché but history has undoubtedly taught us a lot if we choose to ignore it, our ITSM efforts will become radically more complex and frustrating.

Getting the basics right will make the journey continuous and exciting.