While there’s much IT service management (ITSM) focus on the technical skills required to introduce artificial intelligence (AI)-based capabilities, there’s also a need to ensure that people (both IT staff and the people they serve) are suitably educated and potentially trained to fully benefit from the new capabilities.

This need is encapsulated within the use of organizational change management tools and techniques. However, it’s still worthwhile ensuring that your organization’s adoption of AI for ITSM is facilitated by focused, people-related activities that prepare IT staff for AI use.

It's critical to ensure that your org’s adoption of #AI for #ITSM is facilitated by focused, people-related activities that prepare IT staff for AI use. Here we explain how. #servicedesk #artificialintelligence Click To Tweet

The key challenges with AI adoption for ITSM

A short AI survey by ITSM.tools found that:

• 73% of the organizations with an ITSM tool have access to AI capabilities
• 84% of organizations have adopted some form of AI capability (either in IT or business functions)

In terms of the key challenges, the survey found that over half of the respondents felt the “lack of skilled people internally” to be a barrier to AI adoption success.

Challenges	Percentage
Lack of skilled people internally	57%
Competing priorities for resources	44%
Legacy IT applications and infrastructure	43%
Employee resistance to change	40%
Additional costs	38%
Organizational politics and other barriers	34%
The available intelligent automation capabilities	24%
Lack of third-party assistance	16%
Don’t Know or N/A	4%

However, all these statistics need to be recognized in the context of the likely survey bias caused by the survey’s singular focus on AI.

5 steps for preparing IT staff for AI use

As mentioned, organizational change management tools and techniques can help ensure that IT staff are fully prepared for the AI-based ITSM use cases related to their work. This includes:

1. Engagement
2. Focused communications
3. Employee support
4. Change impact analysis and risk management
5. Relevant training.

Each of these five steps is covered in more detail below.

This blog looks at the 5 steps needed to prepare IT staff for AI use at a people, rather than just a tech, level. #ITSM #ServiceDesk #AI #ArtificialIntelligence Click To Tweet

1. Engagement

The introduction of AI-based capabilities is more than simply a technology change; it’s also a people-related change because it affects the current ways of working. A fundamental tenet of organizational change management is involving key stakeholders from the outset.

These key stakeholders are identified through stakeholder analysis, with IT staff likely identified as one of the many people groups affected by the change. Organizational change management practices then focus on engagement. This step has two key objectives:

1. Understanding the concerns, motivations, and reservations of IT staff related to AI
2. Engaging IT staff in the decision-making process.

The combined effect of these objectives is to capture IT staff inputs – from their concerns (perhaps about job security) to their ideas for AI use based on how they work and their operational subject matter expertise. The engagement also helps avoid misunderstandings or potential conflicts and facilitates IT staff buy-in.

A fundamental tenet of organizational change management is involving key stakeholders from the outset, & this step is most definitely required when it comes to #AI adoption. #ArtificialIntelligence #ServiceDesk #ITSM Click To Tweet

The engagement leads into many of the other organizational change management areas, including communications, education, and training.

2. Focused communications

Communications start with the vision for AI adoption, with this ideally a collaborative approach that has brought in the inputs from IT staff and other stakeholders. The aim of communications is to help ensure IT staff are informed and reinformed of AI’s benefits, risks, and impact. This includes addressing potential AI misconceptions and fears, with some IT staff likely being concerned about their job security.

Regular communications can thus be considered part of an education plan, including helping IT staff to appreciate the “What’s in it for me?”. As detailed next, your organization might also want to specifically focus on employee support.

'Communications start with the vision for AI adoption, with this ideally a collaborative approach that has brought in the inputs from IT staff and other stakeholders.' – @SysAid #ITSM #ServiceDesk #AI #ArtificialIntelligence Click To Tweet

3. Employee support

Employee support crosses over various organizational change management steps. It could be considered part of the other steps listed here. However, for IT staff and the introduction of AI-based capabilities, the change can potentially cause significant fears and anxieties if not managed correctly.

Employee support is, therefore, focused on ensuring that IT staff can raise their concerns via various routes, including the ability to talk freely and perhaps privately about its impact on future employment and working practices. It’s an important element of minimizing individual and collective resistance to change.

4. Change impact analysis and risk management

While listed as step 4., this step will likely start early in the AI initiative. Perhaps with some analysis undertaken even before the IT staff engagement. It helps to have the answers to some predictable questions, plus pre-prepared solutions to challenges that will likely arise. For example, IT staff members might want to know how the introduction of AI will impact their individual and team performance targets.

It will also identify relevant IT-staff-related risks such that mitigation measures can be taken. For example, some IT staff might not want to work with AI-based capabilities, and some might not be able to (capability-wise). Addressing this and other risks will help minimize any delays resulting from things not going according to plan.

'Some IT staff might not want to work with AI-based capabilities, & some might not be able to (capability-wise). Addressing this & other risks will help minimize any delays resulting from things not going according to plan.' – @SysAid… Click To Tweet

5. Relevant training

While new technology is often sold as “intuitive,” and IT staff might be more tech-savvy than their business peers, adopting AI-based capabilities in ITSM will likely still require training. This is again because the new technology doesn’t operate in a vacuum, with it likely to affect the current ways of working.

Hence, while some training might cover the “nuts and bolts” of the employed technology, much of the required training will be related to the changed processes. For example, the end-user use of chatbots might not be considered to have a direct impact on IT staff. However, the smooth escalation of an end-user chat to a human agent is not only a new process but one that needs to be handled carefully to ensure that the end-user experience isn’t adversely affected.

AI adoption definitely requires structured training and support programs to help IT staff fully embrace the new AI capabilities, such that people are skilled and confident in their use.

'AI adoption definitely requires structured training & support programs to help IT staff fully embrace the new AI capabilities, such that people are skilled & confident in their use.' – @SysAid #ITSM #ServiceDesk #AI… Click To Tweet

“Preparation is everything”

This might seem a cheesy management quote, but in a similar vein to “failing to plan is planning to fail,” these five organizational change management steps help prepare IT staff for AI use. Including increasing buy-in, minimizing employee resistance, and making the change more sustainable.

If you would like to learn more about preparing your IT staff for AI use, please let us know how we can help you in the comments.