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Humanising IT: We Need to Talk About IT is the podcast for IT leaders, service management professionals, and digital transformation teams who know that great IT is about more than process, tools, and frameworks.
Hosted by Katrina Macdermid and Wesley Eugene and brought to you by HIT Global, this podcast explores how to make IT service management more human, more effective, and more relevant in a world shaped by experience, AI, and constant change.
Each episode dives into the real conversations happening across modern IT, including:
- IT service management (ITSM)
- Human-centred design in IT
- ITIL and experience-led service management
- Digital employee experience
- Service desk and support leadership
- IT transformation and organisational change
- Humanising AI and modern service design
If you work in IT and care about creating services that actually work for the people who use them, this podcast is for you.
Whether you’re a CIO, IT leader, service manager, consultant, support professional, or transformation lead, Humanising IT: We Need to Talk About IT will challenge outdated thinking and help you rethink what better IT service really looks like.
Expect:
- Honest conversations
- Fresh perspectives on ITSM
- Practical insights you can apply
- Thought leadership from experienced voices in the industry
- A more human view of IT, service and experience
Subscribe to Humanising IT: We Need to Talk About IT for new episodes, expert insights, and modern thinking on the future of IT service management.
Explore more from HIT Global: https://www.hitglobal.services/
Learn more about Humanising IT™ training and certification: https://www.hitglobal.services/podcast/
Mark Ep1 - Cleaned
[00:00:00] Mark: So Katrina, thank you for giving me the steering wheel today. My first time... It's the second time on a podcast, but my first time trying to lead one. Um, I guess I should thank Wesley as well for, uh, for trusting me in his absence. Um, my name is Mark Basham, for those I've not met before and who, who, who don't know me.
[00:00:21] Um, I have the pleasure of being one of the co-founders of HIT Global, and, um, our guest today is somebody that actually we all worked or we all met working for the same organization, ooh, eight years ago now. So, um, let me introduce, first of all, Katrina, um, who's gonna try not to interrupt me too much today.
[00:00:47] I'm sure she won't. Um, but I think it's quite appropriate actually that, that, that she plays the role of, of, of, of co-host but also co-guest today because I think she's gonna have a lot of input. Um, our guest was one of the leading, uh, one of the key architects of ITIL 4. Um, so he's a, a framework, best practice framework guru, is how I think of him.
[00:01:13] He left Axelos, um, some years ago now and beca- went to work for one of the big vendors. So he went to work for Atlassian, and he was there for over three years. Um, and more recently, he's left to join one of the biggest corporate, um, organizer and best well-known corporates in the world. So Akshay Anand, delighted to have you join us today.
[00:01:42] Thank you very much indeed. Um, we'll get you to reflect on all of those different phases, uh, throughout the next 20 minutes. But before we do, let me, let me just ask a reflective question. Um, are you, given that you were the, uh, uh, framework guru, that you went to work for one of the vendors, um, one of the leading vendors in the space, and subsequently have be- gone to work for one of, one of these big corporates, are you a poacher turned gamekeeper, or are you a gamekeeper turned poacher, Akshay?
[00:02:18] How, h- how does it feel? I'm, I'm sure everyone is gonna be del- want to hear what it's like in the real world.
[00:02:26] Guest: All right. Well, firstly, thank you, uh, Mark, for that warm welcome. Thank you, Katrina, for having me on your podcast. Um, as you know, I'm a big fan of, of the work that you folks have been doing with, with Humanizing IT and HIT, uh, Global in, in general.
[00:02:39] Um, and yeah, it, it's been, uh, shall we say more years than we care to count that we've known each other and, uh, you know, the... I guess a conversation like this is probably long overdue at this point. So thank you for having me on, first of all.
[00:02:51] Mark: Yeah.
[00:02:51] Guest: Um, y- the question, uh, y- your question is, is somewhat interesting.
[00:02:57] Am I a poacher turned gamekeeper or a gamekeeper turned poacher? Uh, hmm. I suppose, uh, if I had to pick one, uh, if you put me on the spot, probably poacher turned gamekeeper in the sense that when we wanted to update ITIL, you know... Uh, and I, and I worked at Axelos for five years from twenty sixteen to, uh, twenty twenty-one.
[00:03:22] When we wanted to update ITIL, we wanted to prove how it could integrate with and work with all the other frameworks out there. You know, we wanted to make sure people realized that ITIL was good for what it was, uh, what it set out to do. But if people wanted specific domain, uh, framework knowledge in the areas of governance or, uh, multi-vendor management or experience management or whatever else it might be, there were all these other ones out there.
[00:03:49] And the best way we thought we could signpost to these, if you will, was to, if you will, poach some of their ideas and sort of incorporate it into, uh, what we ultimately make the, as, as ITIL 4.
[00:04:04] Mark: Which-
[00:04:04] Guest: And that would be the surest way to point people to those frameworks. Yes.
[00:04:06] Mark: And which is why we, we, we just call it a best practice framework, right?
[00:04:11] So, uh-
[00:04:11] Guest: Absolutely.
[00:04:12] Mark: Yeah.
[00:04:13] Guest: Uh, I, I, I... There was a very philosophical discussion about what it meant to be a best practice framework, which we don't have to go into here, but yeah. Um, so, uh, now since then, I've, I've, as you rightly pointed out, gone and worked in, in different companies, done, uh, different roles. Uh, and, uh, in my current role, I suppose you could say I'm a bit of a gameskeeper.
[00:04:33] I need to make sure that whatever processes, capabilities get implemented, whatever technologies get implemented, um, they are maintained and sustained in the best way possible, similar to how a gameskeeper would on, on, in an, um, in a safari. So, uh, yeah, I think, I think I'd probably poacher turned gamekeeper is probably how I'd answer that one.
[00:04:53] Kat: No,
[00:04:53] Guest: that's fine.
[00:04:53] Mark: I'm very happy with that as an answer. Thank you. I think you actually, you articulate that very well. And I think you, I think you escaped there quite, quite well. Um, Katrina Let's talk a bit about Akshay rather than to him for a minute. So you met him, I think, the same similar time that I, that you and I first met.
[00:05:11] So, um, during those days of 2018, 2019, when the, you were part of the authoring team. What did you think of Akshay back then?
[00:05:20] Kat: Um, I didn't have a lot to do with you initially. As you said, it was Ramon that had, had the, uh, communications with the other authors. I mostly became acquainted and friends, I hope you don't mind me saying, I consider you a very dear- Yeah, absolutely.
[00:05:34] Thank you. I do consider you a very dear friend. When we started doing the road shows, um, so we're talking pre-COVID obviously, um, and I happened to meet and see Akshay in action, um, preaching, if you will, about ISHL and, and best practice. But I, I... and I said to you before, Mark, um, you were a fabulous, um, product ambassador.
[00:05:57] Thanks. No, you really were, and, and you know, your passion, and as I said, your, your knowledge about all things IT service management, um, was... I really enjoyed watching you and, and you always got the biggest crowds. Um, so that's really how we got to know each other, on the road e- essentially. Um, yeah, but I, I do want to just quickly, and, and it's interesting actually that, you know, you pretty much wrote the book with your, your, your peers at Axelos, and now you're, what's the saying?
[00:06:25] Walking... talking the walk or walking the talk. Yeah.
[00:06:27] Mark: Yeah. Walking
[00:06:28] Guest: the
[00:06:28] Mark: talk.
[00:06:28] Kat: Yeah. How do you find it?
[00:06:32] Guest: It's, it's very interesting. Um, you know, I think, I think when I exited Axelos and joined Atlassian, um, I was full of all that passion and that zeal about what modern service management meant. And I think one of the rudest awakenings I've had was in that transition, because as I started to talk to customers about modern service management and, of course, how Atlassian can play into that and so on, I found more and more that people were looking to replicate what they already had.
[00:07:05] They didn't necessarily see the need to evolve. Um, I think, I think before we started recording, uh, Kat and Mark, we, uh, I was reflecting on how I, uh, visited certain companies, uh, and I won't name which ones and, and which part of the world, et cetera. But I remember meeting CIOs in a certain part of the world, um, who used to tell me that they ran in-house ITIL version two, uh, courses and classes for n-new entrants into their service management teams.
[00:07:33] Now, for those of you who are listening who don't know the history of ITIL, ITIL version two was updated to ITIL version three in 2007, so we're talking about 20 years ago, right? So they're still using the guidance from 20 years ago to train teams on how to do things today. And that, plus some of my conversations when I, when I was, uh, post-Axelos, you know, one part of me thinks, "Well, if it's not broke, don't fix it," right?
[00:07:58] If it's working for you, who am I to say otherwise? On the other hand, technology, working culture, ways of working, uh, the level of, uh, the, the recognition of sort of am- real business ambiguity and uncertainty and, you know, the approaches to, to deal with all that, all of that has seen a lot more prominence and evolution over the last 20 years.
[00:08:20] So part of me is also thinking, "Well- Aren't you preparing your company for, to work in a, in a new way, in a new era, et cetera? So it was, it was a, it was a very interesting dilemma that, that, that, uh, I was seeing play out in the marketplace. I don't think it's, it's resolved itself necessarily. Mm-hmm. I think there are still companies and teams who are more than happy to talk ITIL version service support versus service delivery.
[00:08:43] There are lots of companies that talk about service design, service transition, service operations. Um, and, and I guess the way I've made peace with it is to think about, well, if your company came into existence and needed to scale and put all the scaffolding in, put all these underlying structures in, uh, 20 years ago, you looked at version two, you s- you sort of solidified, uh, I don't wanna say fossilized.
[00:09:08] You solidified around version two, and that's been the bedrock ever since. If you scaled up, uh, between 2007 and, let's say, 2015, you probably look at ITIL version three as your source of inspiration, and you solidified your organizational constructs, your operating model around that. So my hope is that companies, what we might today call digital natives and AI natives and all that, who are looking at the guidance of ITIL 4 and now ITIL 5 and all the other frameworks that have popped up since, will solidify around that.
[00:09:41] So the change that we all wanted to see- Yeah ... 10 years ago, we will actually see 10 years from now. That's, that's my hope.
[00:09:49] Kat: Hmm. Very, very interesting, and I think that's a different podcast. But as, as I did say earlier, that, um, yeah, we, we find that the v3 is, you know, v- mostly used out there. But, uh, I love what you said, it's really for the n- the newer organizations that will probably adopt the later versions.
[00:10:06] Yeah. Very interesting.
[00:10:07] Mark: Yeah. You're right. It probably is an entirely, uh, a, a, another pod entirely. I, I'm not convinced that that's true. I, I see and talk to loads of people, modern companies, new companies, who just want the very basic structures, um, that enable things to work, and then they're looking at AI to, um, to, to, to, to, to, to sing and join it all together.
[00:10:32] I don't think they're too fussed about the latest, greatest. What the common thread that we keep coming... And I'm not trying to link back necessarily to, to what we do at this point, but it's the experience thread is the one that I h- I hear about. People are interested in making sure that efficiency and productivity of staff, um, and the roles that they're fulfilling is enabled because they're not being held back by the friction that they are, um, that, that, that we see caused by some of the, um, the, the more lumpy aspects of some of the frameworks, whatever they may be How would that, was that polite enough?
[00:11:09] Uh,
[00:11:09] Guest: yeah Yeah, uh, that's true. Uh, uh, the only, uh, counter I can, uh, I can offer that, because as you know, I'm someone who loves to argue, and I argue with myself all the time as well. Uh, uh, the, the counter I'll, I'll offer is, you know, as the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." And I can see a lot of companies doing a lot of things with a lot of good intention.
[00:11:26] But we're already starting to see a backlash against that. Um, there was a report from SolarWinds, I think last week maybe or earlier this week, which talked about how although AI adoption is growing, workload on ITSM teams is also growing. Yeah. Because you still need someone to review the email that's about to go to a customer explaining why a problem has, how a problem has been fixed or not fixed.
[00:11:49] Mark: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Guest: So the time it takes for someone to review that and potentially rewrite that means that the person could have done that job in the first place. So you've effectively doubled the amount of work that has to be done, even though you've brought AI in to reduce it.
[00:12:01] Mark: Well, and, um I would agree entirely with that observation and, and that report.
[00:12:06] We see that over and over. Not necessarily specifically that example, someone reviewing an external communication, but over and over I think we... It's, it's a truism that we're yet to see it deliver, the AI that is, deliver the, um, the, the, the impact that we all hope it, it will and assume it will
[00:12:23] Kat: But it's like the, um, uh, podcast we did recently with Wesley and a gentleman called Michael Kennedy, who's the former CIO of a large recruitment company, and how AI is changing the roles within IT service management.
[00:12:37] Um, and I have views on this. A lot of people dis- disagree with me, but, but I think soon our roles as we know it within IT service management and ITIL roles will disappear. Um, and new skills will be needed. And a- an example I gave was knowledge management and, you know, you know yourself actually back in the day, you'd have knowledge managers writing knowledge articles manually, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:13:04] Now I think the skills you need are video and editing, 'cause a lot of the knowledge is now via video. Uh, so very, very different and a lot of the things that we did manually, AI will write the knowledge articles in a certain-
[00:13:17] Mark: Yeah ...
[00:13:17] Kat: do the correct grammar, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and that's another thing that I think's really interesting in our space, that the roles will change considerably, and it's either very scary or, um, a great opportunity.
[00:13:30] Um, do you see that in, in, in your network of, um, awareness of roles potentially changing, or do you think we're not there yet?
[00:13:43] Guest: Uh, no. I, I definitely agree with you on this, Kat. Uh, the, the skills mix is changing, but it's probably not a universal, uh, phenomenon. You know, there are places where skills are changing faster than in other areas, right?
[00:14:01] So, you know, you still need someone who understands the technical ins and outs of, you know, um, w- the, the, uh, kit that's being, uh, affected by an incident, um, or in, on a mainframe, et cetera, so they can guide problem investigation correctly, or they can guide change assessment correctly, et cetera. So that's not changing because the business is not changing necessarily over there.
[00:14:25] On the other hand, how do you support someone who is now forced to go through a self-service portal rather than walking up to a desk? You know, so because the, the nature of the interaction itself is changing- Mm ... you might now start to need new skills. People are consuming training not by coming into a big meeting room and sort of sitting there from 9:00 to 5:00 every day going through PowerPoint charts.
[00:14:48] They're watching microbursts of video, and so the skills you need to be able to do that is changing because the touchpoint itself- Mm ... is changing Absolutely So it's, it's all, it's all universal
[00:14:59] Mark: Yeah. Love that. So look, I, I, I want to harp back to your direct experience, Akshay. So you've had this, this u- uh, almost unique, I would suggest, journey through best practice to vendor to now corporate.
[00:15:15] The... And, and exposure through that to so many different- types of organization, and now a, a large, you're be- embedded right in the middle of a very large one. So what, what's the s- y- you know, the top two, three takeaways or learning surprises you've had, um, now that you're deeply embedded within a, a large corporate?
[00:15:40] And a, and a, and a hugely successful one at that. So, um, you've had so much exposure to, on that, uh, to, to, to different environments.
[00:15:49] Guest: I mean, that, that, as, as yous both said, that could be an entirely separate podcast altogether. Uh, but if you, uh, since you're asking me for two, one was, I think, coming out of that conference bubble, if you will, was a big eye-opener.
[00:16:03] Because, you know, yes, I ha- I had, uh, a lot of, uh, tremendous, uh, a lot of amazing experiences traveling around the world, meeting with corporate customers, meeting with trainers, meeting with consultants, talking to other people who are presenting at conferences and learning from them, and I think that enriched me personally.
[00:16:21] But I also saw how people would talk about, you know, industry shifts, et cetera, et cetera, but only within the bubble. You go outside the bubble, you go to the ac- you know, the corporate, uh, s- now sitting in a corporate, people don't know about, you know, stuff that's changed over there because it's not impacting them- Yeah
[00:16:39] necessarily. It's not directly impacting their work, so they don't necessarily see all the things that are going on behind the scenes of best practice frameworks, et cetera. There, there are some people who didn't even know that ITIL was updated to- Yeah, true ... ITIL 4, for example, because it just, it does not affect them.
[00:16:54] Uh, and that was a real eye-opener for me. The second one, and I think this is much more of a, a personal learning, is, um, as I change roles, it almost felt like I had to leave half of myself behind in the old role and learn new skills, learn new things, um, which, which I love doing. I mean, the whole point of career progression, career growth, or even just myself, I, I would get bored if I'm sitting in, uh, the same place doing the same thing every day for years and years and years.
[00:17:23] So I'm happy to discard half of the skills I've learned, but at the same time, I do have a little bit of regret that, you know, these days I'm not on a, uh, in front of a whiteboard sketching out a process diagram like I used to or debating SLAs and metrics and all of that sort of stuff. Instead, I'm worrying about resource allocations and strategy and roadmap and, and so on.
[00:17:43] And I love it, but I also am sa- a little bit sad for what I've had to leave behind, I think. And, and that's the story of career progression the world over, I think. It's all new to me.
[00:17:52] Mark: Yearning. Yearning for the life of a subject matter expert.
[00:17:55] Kat: As the saying goes, Akshay, let it go. Um- But I, I, I think it's interesting, a, a reflection on myself also, uh, of being involved in the ITIL 4, um, and what we do as well.
[00:18:10] And, and now I'm mindful of that because obviously creating, um, with the HIT Global team, Humanizing IT framework, is that I think with frameworks like ITIL 4 that was such a fundamental change to what ITIL v3 was The flaw is that, um, and I haven't discussed this with you, so I, I think HR-
[00:18:33] Guest: Yeah ...
[00:18:34] Kat: HR should, should have been in the room, should be part of training.
[00:18:36] I think procurement should be in the room. I, I think that L&D should be in the room. And, and I think by just simply training IT people, this fundamental shift, it's gonna be hard to, to adopt and adapt, as you- as we would say, without those people- Yeah ... in the room.
[00:18:55] Guest: I, I, I don't disagree, but if you think of it from a product management point of view- Mm.
[00:19:00] Uh, and I... and, and, you know, for, uh, for those who, who knew Axelos back in the day, and I know both of you knew, uh, Margot Leach, who was the sort of head of product, I, I did learn a lot from her through conversations. Mm. So, and if you put a, if you put a product hat on, you would recognize that you have a, a, an existing install base, an existing user base whom you wanted to bring forward on the journey as your product evolved.
[00:19:22] So you had to make necessary trade-offs, and one of those trade-offs was this still needs to be an IT-centric framework. As much as we wanted to talk about what is now called ESM or HRSM or CSA- Yeah ... and show how these principles apply more universally and, and so on, it was a pr- there is a valid product management decision to say, "We need to...
[00:19:44] We cannot abandon our existing install base." And I think you can see the same play into a lot of other companies, technology companies, service companies, where they don't want to leave their existing user base behind.
[00:19:54] Kat: Yeah. Yeah, but I think even if we look at, uh, the service value chain, um, which I understand has changed now, but that was a fundamental shift to how IT organizations operated, from, from roles to responsibilities, you know, probably to, um, what you're getting paid, how the tool...
[00:20:11] Uh, one of my friends, Dean Tooby, uh, said in a post the other day that he felt that, again, a flaw was that the, the tooling didn't update to the framework. The tooling is still V3. Um, and that was the other challenge as well. Yeah.
[00:20:26] Guest: Y- yes. Again, that could be a whole separate podcast. But basically my, my hypothesis on this is you've got to understand when the tool came into existence.
[00:20:35] Mm. Kind of like what I was saying about the framework. So if you look at a lot of the leading tools out there right now, they can trace their root back to, you know, pre-2000, when ITSM tooling was very nascent, and they adopted that whole, uh, architecture of assignment groups and modules and, and so on.
[00:20:54] And you see that architecture reflected in a lot of places. Yeah. Tools that can change things around, um, talk more about let's, let's, let's focus on the team and the work that's coming to the team rather than the organizational construct or an artificial organizational construct. Those tools are much newer.
[00:21:12] They're bringing that thinking, for example, from agile software development and then applying that to service management.
[00:21:17] Kat: Sure. True. True. Yeah.
[00:21:19] Mark: So I'm gonna interrupt you both, sorry. In the interests of, and, um, it's funny when you, when you sat here kind of semi trying to manage the time
[00:21:27] Kat: Running out of time.
[00:21:28] Mark: We are running out of time. But listen, before, before we draw a line under this, I, I do want to ask the question, uh, for actually... I'm gonna thank you first, Akshay, um, for taking the Humanizing IT, um, Foundation training just recently. Um, and I'll thank you, one, for taking it, but, but, um, two, for, um, for posting about it on, on LinkedIn.
[00:21:52] But for those of you that don't follow you or haven't read it Feedback. What did you think? Give us, um, uh, you know... It's, it's taken us f- four years, three years to, um, to, to, for, for you to get around to doing it. Thank you for doing that. Um, I'm sure you agree it was a, a, a great value. But, uh, no, seriously, feedback.
[00:22:11] What did you think? Um, what, where does it fit? I mean-
[00:22:14] Guest: Yeah. So, so one, one of the things that, um, yeah, yeah, I was saying to you on, uh, before we started recording, that a book that really changed my perspective on service management, uh, was a book called, um, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, who was the manager of Eleven Mad- Madison Park, a very famous restaurant in New York, which is, I think, closed now.
[00:22:35] Um, but one of the things he, he writes in that book is people don't remember what they ate, they remember how they felt, right? And this plays into this whole thing that Katrina has been evangelizing ever since I met her, which is experience matters. Yes, the, the, the, the processes and the capabilities and the automation, all of that, yes, that matters, but what people remember is how they felt in the moment, uh, trying to contact support or trying to use a service, not necessarily what they got out of it.
[00:23:03] Um, and I think, a, a lot of those ideas are so reinforced time and again, uh, through humanizing IT. I also really appreciated the fact that you called out that, you know, it doesn't stop with the double diamond. There is a, uh, there is a, a, a support maintenance operations phase beyond the double diamond, and that cannot be forgotten about.
[00:23:25] Now, I will admit I only took foundation. I haven't gone any deeper, and as I said in my LinkedIn post, foundation is kind of like the greatest hits, right? So I'm assuming that in one of the... If I were to dive deeper, I'd probably find an arrow going back from operations all the way back to the start of discover in the double diamond- Correct
[00:23:42] uh, to, like, effectively close that loop. And I think putting that experience lens on is, is a very, very valuable thing that we miss in a lot of day-to-day work. Forget frameworks- Yeah ... but just in day-to-day work. The bit which I think, uh, I probably also missed, and maybe this is in the future sections, is you shouldn't be designing just for your customers or users, you should be designing for the people who are also operating-
[00:24:07] Kat: Absolutely
[00:24:07] Guest: the service.
[00:24:08] Kat: Yeah.
[00:24:08] Guest: Right. Um, uh, you know, uh, at, at a conference some years ago, I used a photo of a very messy, uh, shoe store, right? Shoes scattered all over the place. Now, obviously that's a horrible customer experience because they can't find the thing that they came in to buy. But it's a hor- also a horrible salesperson's experience because they gotta go around, pick up everything, and put them back where it was, right?
[00:24:31] So we have to be able to take all these stakeholder needs into account- Yeah ... and design for all of them.
[00:24:36] Kat: But that's... Yeah.
[00:24:37] Guest: They... I, I, I probably missed that subtlety somewhere in the foundations course. I think it's there.
[00:24:41] Kat: Yeah, yeah. We, we say humanizing IT is about the experience of, uh, our users and the people that support them.
[00:24:48] Mark: Yeah.
[00:24:48] Kat: So-
[00:24:49] Guest: Yeah,
[00:24:49] Mark: I think so ... and, and that's a great way, a great place to, I think, end this
[00:24:53] Kat: one.
[00:24:54] Mark: Mm. Um-
[00:24:54] Kat: Unfortunately, the time has flown, so we have to do another podcast for sure very
[00:24:58] Mark: soon. We do. Well, listen, we've had him once now. There's a, there, there's a whole practitioner layer re- ready for you, uh, Akshay.
[00:25:04] But I think we've already identified at least four other conversations that we need to have before we, before we even get there with you. So thank you very much indeed for joining us. Very much appreciated, and I look forward to catching up with you back in London soon.
[00:25:17] Guest: Thank you. Thank you for having me on.
[00:25:18] Yeah. I, uh, would love to catch up and, and talk at shop when you're both next in London. Brilliant.
[00:25:24] Kat: Thank you, Akshay.
[00:25:24] Mark: Thanks, Akshay