Better Together: Combining ITSM and PPM

Combining ITSM and PPM allows users to have all relevant information in one place. Instead of switching between different pages or programs, everything you need can be right in front of you in a comprehensive, custom dashboard. This allows for a great amount of information to be at your fingertips, like:

• Amount of and type of work that needs to be completed
• Estimated length of project or task
• Which areas need more resources
• Who is assigned to do what
• Who has the availability to help fulfill certain needs
• When that person can do the work

Having this list of information readily available to aid in decision-making speeds up a variety of processes. For example, someone would be able to quickly identify where a bottleneck is occurring, or where excess capacity exists within the resource pool.

At Festival Foods they use TeamDynamix for ITSM and PPM (as well as iPaaS). Having just one platform for both ITSM and PPM has greatly improved the lives of their IT technicians, “Before, they couldn’t customize what their desktop looked like,” Alex Turek, IT service desk manager, said. “They couldn’t get their own reporting or metrics. Now, the technicians make their own dashboards showing what they need to see. They can run their own reports. Metrics and key performance indicators are very easily set up, and these go to our leadership team automatically so leaders can see what we’re working on and what our pain points are.”

And now, there’s a process in place for projects too.

“Before, we had no project governance process,” Turek said. “It was very ad-hoc. Whoever could scream the loudest got the most IT resources. Finding a tool that also included PPM was huge.”

Managing projects and IT services within the same platform has brought significant benefits, leading to improved efficiency and accountability.

“Technicians can see their project work and their IT work in one space,” Turek says. “This means it’s easier to communicate and ensure follow-through. Project managers can assign tasks to my service desk team within the same dashboard they’re using to resolve tickets. Those pop right up, helping them be aware of all their tasks and priorities so they can easily meet their deadlines.”