Senario B:
Smashed it again!
Our customer service rating is 97%
When efficiency drives inefficiency
Efficiency metrics such as call handling time force service desk analysts to end a call rapidly often not resulting in the outcome required. This can be frustrating for customers and exhausting for service desk analysts. These type of metrics create inefficiency down streams – for example, if the service desk analyst was unable to resolve the users issue they need to recontact the user often resulting in either the user not being available or the user has resolved the issue themselves (through asking a colleague or stumbling across the resolution). The time it took for the service desk analyst to recontact the user could have been more wisely spent in productive tasks such as updating knowledge articles or improvement initiatives.
IT service management has traditionally ignored a critical component of the service management lifecycle – the customer.
The need for human centred design in ITSM
From this to this
Instead of beginning our IT service design with operational goals (i.e. SLA’s, average response time, call handling time, etc.) we need to start with the human experience of our users. What are their motivations, desires, context in the use of our IT
services, and their objectives? Why, when, where, and how do they need IT? If we begin by knowing the users, we can build a system around them to amplify their impact for the organization, and consequently meet our organization’s mission. In this way, human centred design is a creative problem-solving process that begins with understanding human needs and ends with innovative solutions to address those needs.
Human centred design principles are used in fields like customer experience, user experience & service design. And while there are a multitude of confusing and overlapping terms that get thrown around in the human centred design space, when you get down to it, it’s fundamentally about understanding people (their needs, constraints, contexts, behaviours and wants) in order to build empathy and make sure that we design solutions to cater to the people they will impact the most.
When we talk about ‘design’ in this way, we are not talking about styling or aesthetics. There is no photoshoping here. Instead, ‘design’ in human centred design space is the methodology used to capture human needs, define solutions, processes and outcomes to respond to the human experience and meet the organization’s overall mission.
CALL OUT - The term ‘Humans’ in the context of human centred design space are not necessarily only the users of a product or service. Human centred design space can also include the other people involved in a project such as employees and stakeholders,
Empathy and Personas
It’s all about empathy - Designing with empathy
For successful human-centred design, it must start with understanding the people who are experiencing a problem before we can design a solution to serve them.
Persona’s
Do we really know our users?
One of the distinct lack of activities (& skills) in IT service management design is taking into consideration the different types of users, motivations, constraints, and pain points experienced when using IT services. Do we really know who our users are?