A couple of weeks ago, our own Sarina Williams wrote a short piece on the “Shift-Left” strategy for service management shared with her at a local user group meeting of ITSM professionals. The concept of shift-left is a reference to the strategy for service management that seeks to reduce costs by moving issue resolution to the front line or as close to the customer as possible. We don’t have to think about that concept for long to see that it makes good sense and its benefits are not limited to service management in IT. However, like most initiatives aimed at more efficient business or IT operations, there is a “people” element to successful implementation, a “process” element, and a “technology” or tools elements.

People stuff is hard, so for today let’s focus on the quick wins through manageable adjustments to our tools and processes with System Center and with the affordable (and sometimes free) software components available from Cireson. If we boil this issue down to it’s most basic element, a good portion of what we are talking about is helping folks help themselves and if necessary, open tickets without picking up the phone to call…