What role does ITIL Project Management play in ITSM?

Organizations with established ITSM strategy already know how ITSM can transform the IT department from a cost-center to a value-generating driver to offer real business value.

As teams modify their service operations to meet increasing needs, IT departments are under more pressure than ever to swiftly execute changes without putting their service levels at risk. This is where organizations can leverage project management best practices along with ITSM best practices to introduce new services.

Combining and integrating these best-practice frameworks is a guaranteed strategy for organizations looking for a digital transformation to reclaim their business vitality. This blog will highlight what role project management can play in ITSM.

What is Project Management?

Project management is the process of using precise methods and concepts to initiate, plan, execute, and manage how new projects or changes are implemented inside an organization.

When introducing new services, project management enables teams to build on ITIL principles by outlining several essential processes. Whether it is to build software, create new business processes, or upgrade IT infrastructure, project teams often involve personnel from diverse backgrounds and locations to collaborate to plan, execute, and manage projects.

Key project management components include:

• Scope – what new developments or changes are expected to be delivered with this project
• Time – the amount of time required for the project
• Cost – the budget that has been set aside for the project
• Quality – the standard of the project’s output

Increasing or reducing any of these components will have an impact on the others. E.g., decreasing the time allotted to finish the project will limit the scope of work that can be done, which can have an impact on the project’s quality and cost.

Stages of Project Management

Even though many project management methodologies and strategies exist, most projects follow somewhat the below stages:

1. Initiation: The project manager determines what the project will accomplish by collaborating with the project benefactor and key stakeholders to agree on deliverables.
2. Planning: The project manager keeps track of all tasks and sets deadlines for them while defining the dependencies between each task.
3. Execution: The project manager assembles the project team and gathers and assigns the project’s resources to specified tasks.
4. Monitoring: The project manager monitors the status of the project tasks and modifies the project plans based on requirements.
5. Closing: The project manager assures that the project’s outcomes are approved by the business and then the project team is disbanded.

Why do we need project management?

Now that you know that project management is an essential practice to define, execute, and manage project tasks that satisfy customer expectations and service provider’s commitments, let’s look at why you need project management:

• Define the scope, timeline, and budget precisely from the outset to stay on track and maintain costs and resources within budget
• Increase your chances of accomplishing the required outcome by understanding how the project fits into your business plan
• Prioritize your company’s resources and make sure they’re being used efficiently.
• Boost productivity and improve quality of work
• Reduce the risk of project failure
• Meet the diverse demands of the project’s stakeholders
• Improve customer satisfaction by providing continuous communication on project status

Where ITSM meets Project Management

Project management can become an essential part of IT Service Management because like project management, the focus of ITSM is achieving customer satisfaction through incident resolution and closure, service request fulfillment, change implementation, and so on within the described scope, timeline, cost, and quality factors.

As you know, organizational change management is crucial to any advancement. Because the goal of ITSM is to provide high-quality IT services at the lowest possible cost, change must be managed with extreme caution to prevent jeopardizing the IT environment’s stability and functionality. This is where project management comes in to keep unnecessary spending in check and keep up with the customer’s evolving business requirements.

How does project management in ITSM help improve IT projects?

Now that we understand what a vital role project management can play in IT service management, let’s see how project management aligned with ITSM can help improve IT service delivery.

• Unified Platform

  With a unified platform for both IT service management and project management, all service desk processes, and project-related activities can be managed from a single platform, resulting in faster turnaround times and increased efficiency among team members.

• Better Planning
  With a unified platform, the project management activities of all participating team members can be easily planned, and their objectives can be defined. Such a platform provides better visibility of the timelines and provides an opportunity for the team members to accurately split responsibilities for all the necessary tasks.
• Enhanced Flexibility
  A unified tool will provide an organization the choice of service delivery projects in any preferred mode whether agile, waterfall, or hybrid. A flexible approach to complete activities will certainly help to enhance project management adoption rates within the department.
• Improved Productivity
  Perhaps the biggest challenge for all project managers is to deliver within time. With a unified tool, project managers can track and monitor all project activities to keep the team’s productivity in check and complete projects within the deadline.
• Boosted ROI
  A unified tool offers enhanced visibility into budget and finances for project managers to make data-driven decisions. This enhances decision-making about time sensitivity activities and contributes to the overall quality of IT services.

Conclusion

The cornerstone of project management is managing the constraints of time, cost, and scope of work while fulfilling objectives. Similarly, ITSM processes are there for the fulfillment of customer-stated expectations for value, capabilities, accessibility, dependability, and efficiency while ensuring agility and responsiveness in times of changing business requirements. These frameworks together can offer a competitive edge to any organization.

If you are on the lookout for a unified platform that provides both these disciplines, then look no further than Motadata ServiceOps ITSM. Motadata ServiceOps is an ITIL-aligned ITSM platform with a built-in project management module that can help you digitally transform your service management practices.