Several years ago, when we purchased our house, I envisioned doing several projects around the property, yet here I am almost five years later and everything is still as it was when we purchased. Projects require planning, which is where I failed.

I remember growing up, we had a neighbor with an unusual man-made hole in the ground next to his home. It turns out that he was building a swimming pool. In fact, he finished it six years ago. The problem with his project is that he started it 25 years ago. This is a good example of a poorly planned and underfunded project.

It is important to properly plan your projects with timelines and a completion date. But more importantly, the project needs to be properly funded.

IT support covers all types of business and government organizations. Projects that define, enhance, or upgrade the IT infrastructure are a part of everyday life for IT employees. The people responsible for choosing and planning projects often put their careers on the line depending on the outcome and success of the project.

With the adoption of the internet in the mid 90s, Dell aligned their strategies and IT projects to build a streamlined process to sell computers directly to the consumer market, cutting out the middle man. Competitors eventually followed Dell’s lead; however, by then it was too late, Dell surpassed Compaq to become the largest PC manufacturer in 1999. Operating costs made up only 10 percent of Dell's $35 billion in revenue in 2002

Many careers were ruined inside Dell’s competitors. Those who failed to see the power of the internet cost their companies millions of dollars in market share by not funding projects to make them competitive.

Commercial organizations that choose the wrong IT strategy will fund the wrong projects and quickly fall behind their competitors. Government organizations that define the wrong strategy, i.e., fund the wrong projects, become inefficient, ultimately costing officials their jobs and/or the elections.

With regards to IT Service Management (ITSM), how should you build solutions today so that you can meet the demands of tomorrow?

In a report published by Software Magazine called “The Future of ITSM”, they claim the following:

“Our data shows that the top three strategic priorities for ITSM teams include improved user experience for internal service consumers—end users, improved operations-to-service desk integrations for incident and problem management, and improved operations-to-service desk integrations for configuration and change management. All three data points call out for stronger operations-to-ITSM integrations—in terms of workflow, analytics, and automation, as well as effective role-aware visualization”

When defining ITSM strategy, you can look to technical magazines, blogs, and analyst reports; however, the information overload might be overwhelming. There are many opinions about what you should do to meet the demands of today while keeping up to date with the technology of tomorrow. Buzz words such as cloud, IoT, social media, and mobility, amongst others, are in the headlines of almost every technical article in the media.

On November 18, I will be presenting via webcast for BrightTALK on how three key ITSM projects will enhance your current service management requirements while preparing you for your service management demands in the future. In addition to the webcast, I will post a five-part series, this being part 1.

In part 2, I continue to discuss the trends. I will also introduce my recommended ITSM projects.

This article was originally published at marcelshaw.com