What is IT operations management (ITOM)?

Capacity planning

Delivering IT services efficiently is best aided by determining your team's capacity to deliver work and not exceeding that capacity. Capacity planning is a team exercise where folks can share past performance data and use that to arrive at total team bandwidth. Teams can agree on a capacity that leaves room for unforeseen events or aim for full utilization across the team. Capacity planning creates confidence that IT teams can rise to the challenges a business might present and be able to sustain a high quality of work week over week.

Problem management

Problem management is the process of identifying and managing the causes of incidents on an IT service. Problem management isn’t just about finding and fixing incidents, but identifying and understanding the underlying causes of an incident and identifying the best method to eliminate that root cause. Creating a process for problem management creates a confident feeling that even the most unforeseen issues can be broken down into root causes and addressed accordingly.

Change management

A change can be defined as adding, modifying, or removing anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on IT services. Change management practices ensure efficient and prompt handling of changes to IT infrastructure and code. Whether you’re rolling out new services, managing existing ones, or resolving problems in code, modern change management approaches break down silos, provide context and transparency, avoid bottlenecks, and minimize risk. 

Benefits of IT operations management

Running an IT org without investing in ITOM is like running a marathon without training. Sure, you might be able to brute force your way to the finish line but at what cost? IT orgs that optimize run like the pros. A pacer keeps you on time, the feed zones keep you fueled up, and the training you’ve done results in your best times yet. Here are some of the benefits you can expect ITOM can unlock in your business:

1. Reduces costs

The cost of an incident can be staggering. By managing capacity, eliminating the root causes of problems, and responding to change, ITOM keeps services running and employees productive while limiting the businesses exposure to costly incidents. When incidents do happen, ITOM teams use software and systems to get the right work to the right teammate at the right time. Additionally, a focus on IT infrastructure and operations leads to less overhead costs for the business as a whole.

2. Improves compliance

Some things you just have to do. Compliance often falls into that category. Let’s say all new laptops need two factor identification and your team is just starting this work. Rather than charge ahead, ITOM practices would encourage the documentation of the full 2FA workflow and the use of an IT service management tool that ensures everything gets done. ITOM helps teammates do both the work they have to do, like compliance, and the work that they want to do, like setting up new employees for success. 

3. Increases security

We don’t pretend to know your security protocols but we can certainly get excited about meeting and exceeding them. In a world where your IT professionals have well documented processes, available capacity, and efficient tools, a focus on security can flourish. The best teams create escalation paths, fast-track root cause analysis, and record workarounds to minimize the impact of a security breach.

4. Increases productivity

One of the miracles of capacity management is that by reducing the amount of work in progress, work gets done faster. Imagine if someone tossed a whole bucket of ping pong balls at you. You might get lucky and catch two. Now imagine that only three balls are tossed. You’ll often surprise yourself and catch all three. ITOM teams generally find that their productivity increases as their ITOM processes mature. 

5. Improves customer service

We’ve arrived at a great moment where our service desk tools can create the right expectation for our customers. By investing in ITOM, we are able to more reliably hit our SLAs and delight our customers. Many will take it a step further and publish their workflows which creates even more transparency about what work needs to be done and in what order.