When ITSM and DevOps collide

Lee Healey
Feb 2, 2023
5 min read

Updated: Feb 3, 2023

Whilst not a new topic, integrating IT Service Management (ITSM) with DevOps is becoming increasingly important as organisations aim to improve their overall operational efficiency and agility.

However, integrating these two approaches continues to bring about several challenges for many.

There are various thoughts and options around how best to achieve a harmonisation of the relationship between the two, yet the debate rumbles on with many organisations struggling to 'draw the line' between the two all-important frameworks.

In this blog, we will discuss some of these challenges and possible solutions to overcome them.

1. Different Mindsets and Cultures:

One of the biggest challenges in integrating ITSM and DevOps is aligning the two different approaches and mindsets. ITSM focuses on standardising and automating IT services, while DevOps focuses on rapid iteration and innovation. Finding a balance between these two can be challenging, and it often requires a change in culture and mindset within an organisation.

2. Lack of Collaboration and Communication:

Effective collaboration and communication between IT operations and development teams is critical for successful ITSM-DevOps integration. Teams often work in silos and lack the necessary communication to ensure seamless integration. Improving collaboration and communication between teams can help to overcome this challenge.

3. Legacy IT Systems:

Many organisations still have legacy IT systems that may not be able to handle the fast-paced and iterative nature of DevOps. Integrating these systems with DevOps can be a complex and time-consuming process. To overcome this challenge, organisations need to invest in modern IT infrastructure and tools that can support both ITSM and DevOps.

4. Lack of Automation:

Automation is a key aspect of both ITSM and DevOps. However, many organisations struggle with automating their IT processes due to the lack of appropriate tools and resources. To overcome this challenge, organisations need to invest in automation tools and infrastructure that can support both ITSM and DevOps.

5. IT Operations Overhead:

IT operations often bear a significant workload in ITSM, which can impact the speed and agility of DevOps. To overcome this challenge, organisations need to adopt a more automated and streamlined approach to ITSM that can support the fast-paced nature of DevOps.

To overcome these challenges, organisations can consider implementing the following solutions:

1. Establishing a Shared Vision:

To overcome the challenge of different mindsets and cultures, organisations need to establish a shared vision for ITSM-DevOps integration. This involves aligning goals, objectives, and processes between IT operations and development teams.

2. Improving Collaboration and Communication:

Encouraging collaboration and communication between IT operations and development teams is critical for successful ITSM-DevOps integration. This can be achieved through regular meetings, open communication channels, and cross-functional teams.

3. Investing in Modern IT Infrastructure:

Legacy IT systems can hinder the integration of ITSM and DevOps. Organisations need to invest in modern IT infrastructure and tools that can support both ITSM and DevOps.

4. Adopting Automation:

Automation is a key aspect of ITSM-DevOps integration. Organisations need to invest in automation tools and infrastructure that can support both ITSM and DevOps. This can help to reduce IT operations overhead and improve the speed and agility of DevOps.

5. Implementing DevOps Practices:

Organisations need to implement DevOps practices such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment to improve the speed and agility of their IT processes. This can help to overcome the challenge of IT operations overhead and improve the overall efficiency of ITSM-DevOps integration.

Taking it a stage further when considering how to integrate at an ITIL4 Change Enablement level;

Align objectives: The first step is to align the objectives of both methodologies. ITIL 4 Change Enablement focuses on managing change to IT services, while DevOps focuses on delivering software quickly and efficiently. By aligning their objectives, you can ensure that changes to IT services are made with minimum disruption to the users.
Define roles and responsibilities: Next, it's important to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each team involved in the change process. ITIL 4 Change Enablement defines roles such as Change Manager, Change Advisory Board, and Implementer, while DevOps has roles such as Development, Testing, and Operations. Make sure these roles are well defined and that there is clear communication between teams.
Adopt an Agile approach: ITIL 4 Change Enablement follows a structured approach to change management, but this can be enhanced by adopting an Agile approach. DevOps is an Agile methodology, so incorporating Agile principles into change management will help make the process more flexible and responsive to changes.
Automate processes: ITIL 4 Change Enablement includes a number of manual processes, such as change request forms and approval processes. These processes can be automated to save time and reduce errors. DevOps is heavily reliant on automation, so incorporating automation into the change management process will help ensure changes are made efficiently and with minimum impact on the users.
Continuously monitor and evaluate: Finally, it's important to continuously monitor and evaluate the change management process to ensure that it is working as intended. This can be done through regular reviews of change records, feedback from users, and performance metrics.

By following these steps, you can fully integrate ITIL 4 Change Enablement into DevOps and ensure that changes to IT services are made efficiently and with minimum impact on the users.

In conclusion, integrating ITSM with DevOps can bring about several challenges. However, by aligning goals and processes, improving collaboration and communication, investing in modern IT infrastructure and tools, adopting automation, and implementing DevOps practices, organisations can overcome these challenges and improve their overall operational efficiency and agility.

Now.. we're going to let you into a secret..

Whilst we have a huge amount of talent within our own team on this topic, the content above was actually written by ChatGPT in less than 20 seconds.. by simply asking it to 'Write a 500 word blog on the challenges surrounding the integration of ITSM and DevOps' and then, 'Now explain how to integrate ITIL4 Change Enablement with DevOps'.

Why didnt we write this ourselves? well mainly because it's such a big challenge for many organisations and whilst we all have views on it here, there is no clear templated solution, hence we were intrigued what ChatGPT would tell us to do!

Now, there's no getting away from experience and that human touch, but we're pleased (and frightened) to say that at a summary level, there's probably not much else we can add to this!

Powerful stuff eh?!!

So the reason for today's blog is really two fold..

There's no question that harmonising ITSM and DevOps is extremely important to many organisations these days and continues to be a huge challenge in finding a workable solution. Not withstanding some investments that might be required in tooling and your legacy infrastructure (which of course may mean an ongoing blend of traditional IT Operations and DevOps for those legacy systems), in our own experience the core to it's success is having clear shared values and collaboration, building out those all-important Communities of Practice to get people talking and to understand why and where their worlds collide, with neither framework dictating to the other which is 'best' as they can and should work along-side each other. In addition, it will ultimately come down to the organisations risk profile as to where you 'draw the line' between the two frameworks.

The second reason for this blog is to really show how incredible ChatGPT is (and it's working with 3 year old data still at the moment!). With so many use cases, the opportunities are endless.

With Microsoft's recent acquisition of ChatGPT and the imminent integration into Bing and Teams, will the 'Hello Google' strap line soon be changing to 'Bye Bye Google'??

Only time will tell!

If you need assistance with ITSM or DevOps implementation, or need to understand how you can improve cross-team collaboration (yes we strongly believe that you still need real experienced ITSM People, both now and in the future to do this stuff), please do get in touch for a chat at hello@itsmpeople.co.uk

Alternatively, you can reach our extremely talented and knowledgeable new robot team member (ChatGPT!) to ask for advice on, well, just about anything really, at https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

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What is ITSM?

Information Technology Service Management processes include a range of activities designed to deliver and support high-quality IT services for your business. These can include incident management, problem management, change management, and service-level management. Additionally, ITSM involves continuous enhancement processes to improve service delivery, increase efficiency and reduce costs. By adopting strong ITSM practices, your business can improve service quality, customer satisfaction and achieve greater alignment between IT and business objectives. This holistic approach ensures that IT services are effective and integrated with your overall business goals. As ITSM focuses on aligning IT services with your business’s needs, you can ensure that IT processes and services support and enhance business operations. This is achieved through a structured approach to managing IT services, guided by best practices and methodologies such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). These models provide guidance on best practices for delivering and supporting technology and other enterprise services and can help companies align their capabilities with their business goals and strategic objectives.
What is ITIL and how does it underpin ITSM?

We adhere to the ITIL Framework in delivering our ITSM consultancy services. ITIL is a globally recognised set of best practices for ITSM that helps businesses provide consistent, high-quality IT services. By implementing ITIL processes and principles, we ensure that your IT operations are standardised, efficient and aligned with industry standards. ITIL4 is the latest version of ITIL, designed to help enterprises navigate the new technological era known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This version introduces a more flexible, modern approach to ITSM, emphasising its integration with other areas of business management.
What are the core practices and processes in ITSM?

Effective ITSM revolves around a number of processes. Whilst there are 34 practice areas in ITIL4, there are often a core set of practices that many of our clients are particularly interested in optimising. As understanding and implementing these processes can significantly enhance the performance and quality of IT services within your organisation. Incident Management Restores all service operations back to normal as soon as possible, minimising to lessen the impact on your operations. This process might involve logging, categorising, prioritising, and resolving incidents, ensuring which can help mitigate disruption to users and the business. Configuration Management Keeps an updated record of IT infrastructure - hardware, software, and network components - in a centralised configuration management database (CMDB). This database provides accurate data on configuration items (CIs) and their relationships. Change Management Ensures any changes to your IT services are controlled and coordinated. This process evaluates the impact of changes, approving them through a structured workflow, and ensuring successful implementation with minimal risk. Service level Management Defines, negotiates, and monitors service level agreements (SLAs) between the service provider and the customer. This process ensures that agreed-upon service quality and performance levels are consistently met. Asset Management Tracks and manages your IT assets throughout their lifecycle to ensure efficient use and cost control. You maintain an accurate inventory of hardware, software, and other IT resources through this. Problem Management Identifies, analyses and resolves the root causes of incidents. Proactively addressing underlying issues can prevent recurring incidents. This, in turn, provides improved system stability and reduced downtime. Request Management Handles the lifecycle of user service requests, such as access to applications, software installations or information enquiries. It ensures requests are managed efficiently to provide a streamlined approach that fulfils user needs and enhances satisfaction. Knowledge Management Captures, organises and shares knowledge to improve efficiency and support decision-making. By leveraging a centralised knowledge base, your IT teams can quickly resolve incidents and problems, and end-users can find the right solutions to common issues.
Why is ITSM important to organisations and their IT (and Enterprise) teams?

Implementing the right ITSM strategy and optimising your tooling can provide a range of benefits for your company, including: Improved Efficiency and Cost Savings By streamlining processes and automating routine tasks, ITSM can help your enterprise work more efficiently and reduce the time and resources required to deliver and support IT services. Good ITSM is a silent enabler of success across a range of organisational goals. Improved Compliance and Risk Management ITSM can help you ensure that your IT systems and processes comply with industry regulations and standards. It also ensures that you are effectively managing risks associated with your IT operations. This can help you avoid costly disruptions and legal consequences. Increased Productivity Effective ITSM practices can help your business prevent problems and fix them quickly if they do occur. This can help you lower costs—outages cost money—and increase productivity and employee satisfaction. Better Customer Satisfaction You can improve customer satisfaction and build stronger relationships by delivering high-quality IT services that meet customers' needs. Improved Service Quality ITSM ensures that IT services are delivered consistently and meet agreed-upon service levels, leading to higher customer satisfaction and better overall service quality. Business Continuity ITSM processes like incident and problem management ensure that disruptions are minimised and services are quickly restored to ensure business continuity. Strategic Alignment ITSM aligns IT services with business objectives, ensuring that technology initiatives support and drive business growth. This alignment helps you make informed decisions and prioritise projects that add the most value. Enhanced Collaboration ITSM promotes a collaborative environment where IT teams can work together more effectively, sharing knowledge and best practices to improve your delivery of services. Proactive problem-solving Through problem management and a proactive approach, ITSM helps your IT teams identify and address the root causes of incidents to prevent future issues and reduce downtime. Continuous Improvement ITSM encourages continuous monitoring and improvement of IT processes, allowing your IT teams to refine and enhance their service delivery regularly. Better Resource Management With ITSM, IT teams can manage resources more effectively, ensuring that personnel, technology, and budget are allocated optimally to support business requirements.
Do you provide ITSM tooling support and what tools do you specialise in?

The ITSM People are completely agnostic with ITSM tools and not tied to any vendors. Given the close relationship between ITSM related processes and ITSM tools, we often get involved in tool selection projects, or making recommendations on how to improve tools and get the best value from them. We work with tools such as ServiceNow, BMC, Jira, ManageEngine, Fresh, Halo and Xurrent.