Why State and Local Governments Should Be Implementing ITIL

As public sector organizations look to improve their IT processes and IT Service Management (ITSM) maturity, many are implementing ITIL best practices. ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library and describes the processes, procedures, tasks and checklists that can be applied by an organization as part of an overall IT strategy.

A 2024 survey on IT trends in the public sector revealed that only 38 percent of respondents said they have adopted or are in the process of adopting the ITIL framework while 26 percent are in the process of adopting ITIL now and an alarming 28 percent said they have no plans to adopt ITIL.

Despite low ITIL adoption rates, many respondents said their agency has fully implemented critical IT service functions including event/incident response, project management, change management, integration with enterprise systems, self-service portals and software asset management. That can cause challenges, says Rials, because these functions work best when following ITIL best practices.

“You can’t do these things well if you don’t have a mature ITIL process in place,” Rials said. “Without ITIL, organizations may be doing tactical things without a strategy. It becomes a hodgepodge of solutions.”

City of Goodyear Adopts ITIL with New ITSM Tool

The City of Goodyear recently switched to TeamDynamix for ITSM to address their lack of ITIL maturity and growing workloads.

“It’s one thing to say we’re overworked—and it’s another to be able to illustrate this with concrete data,” said Lisa Faison, deputy CIO for the City of Goodyear, Arizona, municipal government.

A few years ago, the City of Goodyear didn’t have any way to track the status of IT projects. The city government had a ticketing system for managing the delivery of IT services, but this system was very limited in what it could do and what information it could provide.

“We wanted to increase the maturity of our IT operations by moving to ITIL processes,” Faison said.

This meant bringing the oversight of IT services and projects together under a single platform for IT Service Management (ITSM) and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) to give leaders a holistic view of the work employees were doing. What’s more, the platform had to allow for simple configuration and automation of IT processes, without a lot of coding or administration needed on the back end.

On the IT service side, using a modern ITSM tool like TeamDynamix has allowed the city to set up a service catalog and a self-service portal that routs tickets to the correct staff members for fulfillment automatically, reducing the number of times that service tickets bounce around from one person to another. This has helped speed up incident response times significantly.

“We did a training roadshow,” Faison said, whereby IT staff met with various departments and showed them how to use the self-service portal. They also handed out pens with the link to the portal etched on the side. This internal marketing campaign has contributed to widespread adoption, with about three-fourths of service requests now being submitted through the portal— and this is leading to faster resolution for employees.

Automated workflows have also helped streamline key processes and improve the delivery of IT services. For instance, the IT team established an automated workflow within TeamDynamix for purchasing hardware and software, with requests being routed automatically to the appropriate people for approvals.

“It’s a nice, fully automated workflow,” Faison said. “We’d like to implement automated workflows in other areas moving forward as well.”

On the project side, TeamDynamix gives the city’s IT department a simple way to evaluate, approve and manage projects of all sizes. Managing IT projects and service requests within the same platform gives leaders a holistic view of the work that team members are doing.

“It helps us evaluate whether we can take on new projects based on the people we have available,” said Remi Nunez, senior IT project manager. And this is critical for reducing resource drain.

Having clear data showing the scope of the work that team members are doing also gives IT leaders the evidence they need to advocate for additional staffing in areas that require it.

For instance, Faison and her colleagues knew the GIS team had a constant backlog of work, but they weren’t able to quantify this challenge before. With TeamDynamix reporting, they were able to demonstrate this need and hire another full-time GIS employee.

One year into using TeamDynamix, having better visibility into project and service information has helped the city’s IT department improve customer service for employees—and the city has only begun to scratch the surface of what the platform enables.

As Goodyear’s IT maturity continues, Faison and her colleagues will be looking to use the data they collect on IT projects to accurately forecast the amount of time that new projects will take, so they can allocate resources to projects more effectively. They also plan to help other city departments use TeamDynamix for enterprise-level service and project management.

The Benefits of Using ITIL

There are many benefits to using ITIL as part of your ITSM strategy, including:

1. Improved Service Delivery – ITIL provides a structured approach to IT Service Management, helping organizations to deliver high-quality services to their end-users. By following ITIL best practices, organizations can improve their service delivery processes and ensure that they meet the needs of their end-users.
2. Increased Efficiency – ITIL helps organizations streamline their ITSM processes, reducing the time and effort required to manage IT services. This results in increased efficiency, lower costs and improved productivity.
3. Better Communication – ITIL promotes better communication between IT teams and other departments within an organization. By using a common language and a structured approach to ITSM, organizations can improve communication and collaboration, resulting in better outcomes.
4. Enhanced End-User Satisfaction – ITIL focuses on the customer experience, helping organizations understand their end-users’ needs and expectations. By aligning IT services with business objectives and delivering high-quality services, organizations can improve end-user satisfaction.
5. Continuous Improvement – ITIL promotes a culture of continuous improvement, helping organizations to identify areas for improvement and implement changes that drive better outcomes. By regularly reviewing and improving ITSM processes, organizations can stay competitive and meet the evolving needs of their end-users.

Want to read the full report on 2024 public sector IT trends? Check out: 2024 Outlook for Trends in IT Service Management