Introduction

“I need a new laptop.”

“The internet’s gone down.”

“Our software needs upgrading.”

“I can’t access the remote desktop.”

Very small organisations can probably deal with these kinds of IT requests ad hoc. They might only have one or two IT people, completing work and solving issues as they arise, not really needing a central system for making, prioritising, and tracking them.

But as soon as the organisation grows, cracks form and important tasks and responsibilities fall through them. More people, tools, and requests eventually make it impossible to provide IT services without a formal structure and processes. And so the time comes to implement an IT service management (ITSM) system.

ITSM is a proactive approach to managing IT infrastructure and services based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL provides guidelines and best practices for aligning IT services with business needs.

Request management is actually only one of the core processes of ITSM. The others are:

• incident management: resolving unplanned service disruptions quickly
• problem management: identifying and eliminating the root causes of recurring incidents
• change management: ensuring that updates to IT systems are executed safely without disrupting operations

In this article, we’re going to focus on request management, since this is where the most obvious signs of a need for change can be seen.

So, what are the warning signs that you may need ITSM? Here’s a practical checklist of things to look out for.

1. Requests are getting lost

Service requests come in as emails, direct messages, or @mentions in group channels. Often they get buried under new messages and forgotten about. Staff have to chase up or resort to a workaround, slowing productivity. And sometimes missed requests lead to compliance and security risks.

How ITSM helps

With ITSM software, teams can log, prioritise, assign, and track requests to completion in a central system.

2. Responsibilities are unclear

Without a central system for requesting service, multiple people can end up responding to the same request, leading to duplication. And if there’s no clear way of tracking, triaging, or assigning tasks, no one is sure who owns what and issues sit unresolved.

How ITSM helps

Incoming requests can be filtered into queues, which let teams quickly view, triage, and assign requests as they come in. You can also configure requests to be automatically routed to a specific person.

3. Low visibility of workload and performance

If there’s no ITSM system, there’s no real way to find out how much work everyone’s doing, or how well they’re doing it. Let’s say a manager asks, “How many requests did we handle last month?” or “How many service-level agreements (SLAs) have we breached in the last 7 days?” You’d have to manually dig through inboxes and spreadsheets to answer these questions.

How ITSM helps

Real-time reports and dashboards can provide instant visibility into request volumes, workloads, and resolution times, which helps teams to identify areas for improvement.

4. Priorities are driven by who shouts loudest

Ad hoc IT service is reactive and doesn’t allow for proper planning or prioritisation. In email systems, the most vocal or senior requester often gets attention first, regardless of the real impact their issue is having on operations. This leads to inefficiency and critical services remaining disrupted while less important tasks are handled.

How ITSM helps

An ITSM system enables support agents to assign a priority level to a request based on urgency and impact. Some systems, like Jira Service Management (JSM), even let you set up an impact urgency priority matrix and use automation to assign priorities for you. An ITSM tool like JSM can also automatically place incoming requests into queues based on specific criteria, such as request type, location, or SLA priority.

5. Frustrated employees and customers

In email systems, those requesting service—whether external customers or internal employees—have no visibility into the status of their requests. Sometimes they don’t even know if the request was received, let alone if anyone’s working on it. This erodes confidence and leads employees/customers to chase updates, which only adds to the workload of support teams.

How ITSM helps

Employees and customers use a self-service portal to make their requests. This allows them to confirm receipt, track progress, and get automated notifications when the status changes or an agent posts a comment.  

6. Strategic work takes a backseat

Teams spend hours managing requests manually instead of focusing on strategic projects, such as digital transformation initiatives and cybersecurity programs. Important ventures that could improve efficiency, productivity, and service get delayed indefinitely because IT-related admin tasks drain the resources.

How ITSM helps

Good ITSM software should automate most of the repetitive tasks, freeing up time for higher-value projects. For example, Jira Service Management comes with automated triage features, automated notifications and updates for requesters, and automated approvals for change requests, among other things.

7. Other departments are struggling as well

IT isn’t the only department feeling the strain. HR teams are swamped with onboarding questions. Legal teams have to sift through long email chains to find out where they are with a contract. Facilities teams get maintenance requests via sticky notes. Each department builds its own workarounds and, as a result, staff and customers experience fragmented and inconsistent service.

How ITSM helps

If you choose an ITSM tool that extends ITSM capabilities to other teams, then a single platform can be used to manage requests across all of them. This reduces data silos, improves accountability and cross-department communication, and makes organisation-wide service delivery more efficient and consistent.

Conclusion

Email, spreadsheets, and ad hoc processes are fine for managing IT services if you’re a very small organisation only dealing with a few requests. But they just don’t work once you start to grow and your IT team starts taking on more and more requests.

An ITSM tool like Jira Service Management provides much-needed structure. Requests are logged, tracked, prioritised, and resolved transparently within a central system. You get clearer audit trails, stronger accountability, better reporting and visibility for leadership, and most importantly, higher efficiency and service quality.

So if you’re experiencing any of the 7 signs above, ITSM is the change you need. Contact us for a personalised demo of Jira Service Management today.

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