Take something seemingly simple: onboarding a new employee. This overall function typically involves IT, human resources, security, and facilities. Usually, this means multiple requests into different platforms, perhaps a series of emails and maybe even phone calls. An enterprise service management (ESM) platform can help mitigate the back and forth.
Local governments across the country are having to manage a prevalence of disparate systems and workflows, causing unnecessary gaps in service, time lags, and reduced use of resources. To mitigate these hurdles, IT leaders are moving toward a single platform approach.
One Portal. One Platform. One Solution.
Instead of entering requests into multiple systems, one single portal takes the initial onboarding request. Once the request is submitted, it will parse out the tasks and assign the appropriate task to the various departments, such as requesting equipment from IT, clearance from security, badge processing from facilities, and benefits onboarding from human resources.IT teams also benefit and can manage the rollout of new software and servers, automatically route tickets, and enable employees to submit requests via self-service tools. The possibilities are endless and will become even more sophisticated as states and municipalities develop smart city projects, integrate with the Internet of Things (IoT), and implement innovative mobile services.
5 BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPROVED SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Establish a Comprehensive, User-Friendly Knowledge Base: A well-built knowledge base promotes self-service and allows people to access the information they need quickly. Think about how you will present, index, and categorize information so users can easily find and use it. Crowdsource knowledge (judiciously) from multiple departments to make the knowledge base as comprehensive as possible.Create a Centralized Portal for Universal Access: If you build out a single centralized portal that encompasses IT, Facilities, HR, and more, end users can use that portal as a centralized access point. Once in the portal, the knowledge base can answer any self-service inquiries, providing quick access to “service requests,” initiating the onboarding of a new employee, requesting facilities access, or a request as simple as “Wi-Fi is not working.”
Consolidate Service and Project Management: This allows organizations to obtain a unified, accurate view of what tasks need completing and what projects are assigned to whom. It also helps optimize resources, allocate workers’ time appropriately, and improve project performance.
Choose the Right Tool for the Job: Users can become frustrated when asked to follow methodologies that are unwieldy or unnecessary for a given task or project. To encourage broad adoption of a project management methodology, consider the scale and complexity of each project, and then choose the model that best serves the project.
Make Project Management a Discipline: Create a Project Management Office (PMO), appoint a certified project management professional to lead it, and establish policies and procedures to help standardize and enforce best practices. In a survey of U.S. government IT leaders, respondents reported that their PMO had contributed to a 23 percent drop in the number of failed projects, a 35 percent increase in the number of projects delivered under budget and a 20 percent improvement in productivity.
State and local governments are taking advantage of the TeamDynamix single platform approach. With a single cloud-based platform, IT leaders in state and local governments are finding a better use of resources, faster turnaround time and better visibility to timelines and budgets.
