People Articles

The ITSM Industry’s Repeating Failure Pattern

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on April 21, 2026

For over 20 years, ITSM has repeated the same failures. Through ABC cards, Paul Wilkinson reveals how culture, leadership, and behavior – not tools or frameworks – consistently derail success. As AI becomes the latest “shiny new thing,” the question remains: why hasn’t the industry learned?

Neurodivergence in ITSM: Why Being Called a “Legend” Feels Uncomfortable

  • Posted by Daniel Breston
  • on April 9, 2026

This article by Daniel Breston is about neurodivergence in ITSM and was sparked (pardon the pun) by his attendance – and what he did and didn’t feel – at the Service Desk Institute (SDI) SPARK26 event.

Superheroes, Service Desks, and Chaos Monkeys – What I Learned from SDI SPARK26

  • Posted by Vawns Murphy
  • on March 30, 2026

The Service Desk Institute (SDI) held its annual SPARK conference in Birmingham in March. In this article, you’ll find an overview of what Vawns Murphy sees as the best bits, including top tips and advice from the presenters.

2026 ITSM Trends: What the Community Actually Wants Help With

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on February 24, 2026

Each year we ask the ITSM community what topics they want help with. Here are the 2026 results, how priorities have changed over six years, and what it all means. Spoiler: GenAI has fallen off a cliff and nobody wants to talk about people anymore.

The 2026 ITSM Risks Leaders Are Underestimating

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on February 4, 2026

The biggest ITSM risks for 2026 span four areas: people challenges, including exclusion and talent shortages, process maturity gaps in AI adoption, technology risks from unauthorized AI use and poor data quality, and value delivery failures from focusing on tools over outcomes.

2026 ITSM Content: What IT Service Management Topics Do You Need Most?

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on December 24, 2025

What will you need help with next year? Take our quick 2026 ITSM Topics poll to help shape the articles, guides, and practical content ITSM.tools posts. This aggregated insight also gives us an indication of the hottest trends in ITSM right now.

The Anti-Powernoia Practical Implementation Guide

  • Posted by Daniel Breston
  • on December 17, 2025

A candid, experience-based guide to ITSM implementation failures caused by power and fear. Learn how Powernoia distorts ITIL practices, metrics, and tools – and what to measure instead to preserve dignity, trust, and real service excellence.

itSMF UK 2025: People Over Process, Finally

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on November 19, 2025

Want to know what happened at this year’s itSMF UK conference and what some of the key ITSM nuggets and takeaways were? This personal reflection by Sophie Danby shares the standout sessions (attended), the themes that shaped the event, and what could be improved.

Sleepwalking into Exclusion: The Hidden ITSM Risk for 2026

  • Posted by David Barrow
  • on November 18, 2025

When ITSM and other digital leaders discuss risks entering 2026, the conversation typically revolves around outages, cyber threats, rising costs, tooling, or vendor lock-in. These are all important risks. But they’re also predictable. David Barrow believes the ITSM risk we’re most underestimating is exclusion.

Why ITSM is Breaking People (And What We Can Do)

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on September 23, 2025

We talk endlessly about processes, tools, and technology in ITSM. But here’s what we don’t talk about enough: the mental health of the people actually doing the work. The conversation is happening – there are posts about well-being, mental health awareness weeks, and workplace stress. But what about when it comes to the specific pressures of ITSM roles? Or the unique challenges teams face? This is where the conversation gets a bit thin. In this article, Sophie Danby explains what and how things need to change.

The Future of IT Is Human – What We Learned from 130+ Countries

  • Posted by Sakari Kyrö
  • on August 20, 2025

The HappySignals Global IT Experience Benchmark Report 2025, based on 2.28 million employee feedback responses from over 130 countries, is a comprehensive snapshot of how employees experience IT services and how organizations are using that data to create better, more people-centric support. This article explains more.

ITSM Well-being in 2025

  • Posted by Stephen Mann
  • on April 8, 2025

Here are the results of our ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey. It was last run in early 2024 to see how people in ITSM roles felt about work, and these results are used in this article for comparison purposes.

ITSM Well-being in 2025 – Please Take Our Survey

  • Posted by Stephen Mann
  • on March 4, 2025

We’re running our fifth ITSM Well-being Survey to see how people feel about working in IT (and in IT service delivery and support roles in particular) in 2025. We’re hoping you’ll spare us a minute or so to share your personal views on employee well-being in your organization.

Top ITSM Trends to Watch in 2025

  • Posted by Sophie Danby
  • on January 15, 2025

This article shares the results of ITSM.tools ITSM Trends for 2025 content poll based on 176 responses. There are also insights into how ITSM trends have changed over time, some trend-related opinions, and links to existing trend-related ITSM.tools content that might still help.

Mental Health Decline: Why IT Leaders Can No Longer Ignore It

  • Posted by Daniel Breston
  • on September 3, 2024

It’s time we as leaders observe the obvious: because we (yes, I was once one) are the cause of the mental health crisis in IT. This article looks at the Big 5: anxiety, stress, depression, burnout, and their leader stigma.