Build a Continual Improvement Plan for the Service Desk

• Even service desks with a high degree of process maturity must contend with business priorities that change over time to sustain operational excellence.
• Without the right leadership, commitment, and processes, improvements in service quality can be difficult to sustain.
• Resistance to change from the business, end users, and service desk staff can create a major barrier to success.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

• Lean into disruptive trends. Mature service desks are ideally situated to make the most of disruptive trends to meet changing business priorities.
• It’s easier to climb Mount Everest than to stay there. Without continual service improvement, sustained service desk quality will be temporary. Organizations need to put in place an ongoing process to audit, enhance, and sustain the performance of the service desk whatever their process maturity.

Impact and Result

• Continual service improvement is not only a development plan, but also an organizational culture. The goal is to embed a process of continual improvement in target service desk processes that enhances capabilities and improves service quality over time.
• Build a continual improvement plan for the service desk to review and evaluate key processes and services, and manage the progress of improvement initiatives. The plan should develop a vision for the service desk, review its architecture, set measurable targets for improvement initiatives, identify relevant initiatives, and implement and manage its progress.
• The service desk continuous improvement plan is an ongoing process. As one improvement cycle ends, the next cycle begins, which allows the service desk to keep pace with changing business requirements.