- A well-functioning service desk reflects
the situation it finds itself in.
The modern service desk resides in a digital enterprise,
where IT is the business, and the business is IT.
Digital businesses have IT enabled their organization,
brand, products, and services.
Doing so has rendered the distinction and silos
between IT and the business
as nonsensical and counterproductive.
Here we have a manifesto for the modern service desk,
taking a page from the agile manifesto.
It's a lot to absorb, but don't worry,
we'll describe each of these now
in terms of the characteristics of the modern service desk.
Modern service desks are laser-focused on understanding
and managing the customer experience,
and working hard to stage and carry out all touch points
along the journey stakeholders have with them for success.
They take the time to identify stakeholders,
their jobs to be done, the journeys they take with them,
and the touch points where they interact
with their organization, brand, and offerings.
Modern service desks practice persona based,
omnichannel engagement.
Persona based engagement is presenting, for example,
the self service portal to the user,
and the workspace of the agent in a way
that's tailored to the specific persona that's in play.
Omnichannel management is integrating all channels,
so the user has a continuity to their experience.
Both methods support better experiences.
Modern service desks don't just handle
the contacts they get well.
A distinguishing characteristic of modern service desks is
that they preempt unnecessary low value contacts
with users in the first place,
using modern experience management tools.
They then track and display contacts preempted
on dashboards and in reports,
as contacts preempted is a key measure of the success.
Modern service desks shift left.
They're in a continuous virtuous motion
of moving interactions at touch points from the right,
from the more costly
and less efficient assisted handling channels,
to the left, to an even better
and more cost effective experience
to preventing contacts in the first place,
and, if they must occur,
handling them through self service.
Traditional service desks supported
a relatively static environment,
and traditional service desks
and service levels remain fixed
for relatively long periods of time,
often measured in years.
Modern service desks operate within
a much more dynamic environment,
with services and service levels constantly changing.
The number one difference between traditional
and modern service desks is their operating assumptions
around how services and service levels can
and should behave.
A modern service desk assumes both services
and service levels can and must continually change.
Here we contrast the core operating assumptions
of traditional and modern service desks.
These differences reflect the nature
of how the modern service desk target environment operates,
and thus how the service desk must operate,
with an understanding that
the target environment it manages and supports can
and must continually adapt and change,
and that its own services
and service levels must also continually adapt and change.
Digital organizations,
and the modern service desks that service them,
they assume their organization, brands,
and products and services, and their features,
qualities, and service levels can
and must continually change,
because business conditions,
and what technology makes possible,
and stakeholder jobs to be done, they constantly change.
Today, any stability we have is like that
of a light plane in a windstorm,
requiring constant adjustment to maintain course.
Another key difference between traditional
and modern service desks is in their operating assumptions
about the role of continual improvement.
In traditional, continual improvement was present,
but took a back seat.
In modern, doing and improving have equal billing.
This is because adjusting is part of improving,
and the modern service desk environment requires it
to constantly adjust.
This change in basic operating assumptions
is evident in service desk outsourcing contracts.
In the past, improvement was included
in the boiler plate marketing copy.
Nowadays, industry leaders include it
as a core service alongside incident and request handling.
When you see the word improve here,
note that includes both simply adjusting
to changing additions, as well as making things better.
Modern service desks see both doing the work
and improving the work as first class citizens,
because improving includes adjusting to conditions,
and constantly changing editions are the norm
in digital enterprises.
They value adjusting course over following a plan,
and use agile ways to both do and improve the work,
using lots of customer experience centered feedback loops
to drive what they do.
Modern service desks automate on the front end,
what the user sees, like self service portals,
and on the backend, as in workflows,
for a better customer experience,
speed of service, and time to value.
They automate also to eliminate unnecessary dependencies
and variations that would hamper
the organization's ability to scale.
Traditional enterprises use bureaucratic mechanisms,
like agreements for direction and control.
Digital enterprises, and the service desks that serve them,
use the minimum viable bureaucracy approach,
by making the status of work and outcomes visible,
and using that visibility to drive the right behaviors,
balancing accountability with a safety
to engender learning and growth.
Digital enterprises and the modern service desks
that service them are complex adaptive systems.
Unlike complicated systems,
which can be understood by one person given enough time
and are highly predictable,
complex systems can not be understood by one person,
and are less predictable.
Working in a complex adaptive system
requires different approaches to survive and thrive.
Digital enterprises and the modern service desks
that serve them are self organizing systems,
more so than command and control systems.
They use a simple set of rules,
guiding principles, and governance directives
to bring order and direction to work.
They do this just as geese flying in formation
have no command and control leader.
Order emerges out of a simple set of rules.
Instead of coordinating across silos,
where each silo works together
to meet their separate objectives,
digital enterprises, and the modern service desks
that serve them, break down silos and collaborate
on shared objectives.
A key marker of a modern service desk is that the silo
between endpoint management has come down.
A modern service desk must have access
to experienced management tools,
to preempt contacts, and to get a full view
into the user experience.
T shaped people have a deep knowledge and skill in one area,
the vertical part of the T,
and a broad set of knowledge and skill,
the top part of the T.
Digital enterprises and the service desks that service them,
hire and develop for T shaped individuals,
which supports self similarity,
a concept that enables scaling.
It comes from complex adaptive systems theory,
and is used in cloud computing,
as in self similar cloud scale units
that allow cloud services to scale up and down.
Modern service desks differ greatly
from their traditional predecessors.
They make heavy use of subscription based cloud
and mobile technologies,
versus more traditional physical on premise equipment
and perpetually licensed software.
This is the environment
that the modern service desk supports,
and it requires a different approach to support,
because it's constantly changing in its configuration,
its features, and its qualities.
Digital enterprises and modern service desks run
at a much higher cadence.
They can because of the cloud
and mobile technologies they use,
and they must because speed to market,
and time to value are key success factors.
Technology has both enabled higher velocity,
and created the demand for it,
by removing blockers from value flow.
A key part of this enablement is enhanced ability
to restore to a prior state as compared
to physical on prem operations, and traditional platforms.
Digital organizations see that the value
of change is time bound,
like a mariner's decision to change course.
As a result, their posture towards change is
to balance getting necessary changes out
so value can begin to be realized, with preventing changes
from adversely affecting stakeholder experiences.
This is supported by a greater ability
to restore a prior state through digital technologies,
versus physical on prem hardware,
and traditional platforms.
Digital organizations, and the service desks
that service them aim for speed,
but they also aim for quality,
so as to prevent bad user experiences.
Both digital organizations,
and the service desks that serve them,
leverage automation heavily to achieve speed with quality.
Now that we've covered key characteristics
of a modern service desk,
let's have a look at the five key elements
that make up a modern service desk.
Notice agile continual improvement is listed
as a core service on the left,
along with incident and request management.
The modern service desk interacts with users
across a variety of channels,
including no channel, or preemption,
as shown here at the top,
which is where it prevents inbound contacts proactively,
using modern experience management tools.
And the modern service desk is represented by
and interacts with users through automation and people.
Through automation, it interacts with users
on self service channels, and employs people
to assist users on human assisted service channels.
The modern service desk is made up
of both automation and people.
Here we focus on the people,
both the people that make it up,
and the people the service desk serves
and collaborates with.
Not all service desks are organized in the way shown here,
but it's important to represent them here,
as they are a key element of a modern service desk.
A distinct set of processes underpins the services
the modern service desk provides.
Note here that incident and request management,
and agile continual improvement,
are both services, as shown on the far left.
They're on the front end,
and what the user sees and recognizes.
And, they're are also processes on the backend
that underpin those services,
as highlighted here on the right.
The service desk uses a variety of tools in its work.
The modern service desk is differentiated
by the inclusion of tools
that provide actionable insight
into the customer experiences.
Those that provide more efficient and effective forms
of assisted services, those that provide various forms
of self service, and in particular,
those that the service desk can use
to preempt inbound contacts
that don't need to happen at all.