Key factors to consider while starting and implementing the journey of Automation and AI for ITSM?

I’m about to start on an automation journey. How to start and implement the journey towards Automation and AI for ITSM? (Includes Conversational IT, Conversational RPA, RPA and ITPA)

Please do share best practices from your experiences.

The first point is you should be aware of your business outcome. What is the outcome that you want from automation?

In order to achieve that outcome, you need to know what is the business process that you are going to automate.

And when I talk about business processes end-to-end business processes, third is know what are the points where in you’ll need human intervention and the stakeholders involved in the different steps that you’ll take to automate.

And then you start automating, you break down the problem and start automating it in pieces. But keep it flexible so that you can join the pieces later. So if you are going to distribute it with different teams and you have inflexible automation, then you won’t be able to join it anymore and your endeavor fails. So keep it flexible so that even if it’s different teams working on different pieces, you can join them up together.

And the last point I would say is always test continuously. Do not wait for the for the whole big picture to be completed and then run the test, and you’ll see 110 bugs there, and you will lose heart. So always keep on whenever you develop these small processes, testing them continuously, and then when you join them up or integrate with other processes. Keep testing them so that you are sure of what’s happening and how the whole process works.

So that I would say these five steps would actually help you to define and get more value from the automation and also present it back to the stakeholders.

By Girish Gadage - Shared From Podcast Transcript

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Automation is a powerful buzz word, However the true value of implementing automation depends upon identifying the correct use cases may it be in business process or in IT processes.
some simple questions should be discussed first, which can eventually become the driving factors to for starting the automation journey.

  1. Can automation in the identified process or the use case help us reduce the TAT?
  2. Can Automation support quick completion of requests in real time, though processing time may be same as that of humans, but completion in real time can give us an indirect savings.
  3. Can automation prevent the duplication of efforts from end user? (i.e. raise ticket on portal then call hot line number) and can it prevent additional workload of analysts? (i.e. work on ticket and also
    answer calls)
  4. Can it be a cost efficient automation? - e.g. Improvement in productivity with reduction in 24x7 shift allowances.

These few questions if answered; next is to identify the deployment methods. Automation can never be seen as a project rather it should be handled as continuous improvement journey as the opportunities will keep on evolving. so following are key factors for any automation implementations.

  1. Use Agile method to deploy process automations as opportunities are huge. (starting small - implement automation for the identified process in production and make incremental changes)
  2. Ensure to have centralized monitoring in place to identify automation errors and fix it
  3. Organize Hackathon like events and identify business and IT Use Cases through employee feedback.
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Wow, superb explanation and valuable tips @Juzer!!! Thanks a lot:)

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