A proper Knowledge Management strategy is essential to an efficient IT support offering. However, achieving this may present some challenges. It requires time, effort, consistency, and, most importantly, to create awareness of its relevance.

Neal Travis brings on the importance of building community, fostering strong relationships, and encouraging effective communication within a Customer Support team. He shares his current experience in AIHR, focusing on the work he does to motivate connections and share knowledge throughout the support team. Neal also talks about his experience with Support Driven, a community for Support professionals, and how his participation allows him to grow and improve in his day to day tasks.

Have you ever wanted to leave your current position and become an ITSM consultant? Here’s a little help in that direction! ITSM independent consultant and mentor Sophie Hussey shares her work process and how ITIL4 continues to provide a solid structure that allows organizations to focus on simplifying processes and finding what really is adding value to their workplace. For this, she specifically points out the importance of Change Enablement and Risk Management and lists other frameworks and strategies that she incorporates to her program.

Help desk staffing gets more and more complex over time. How do you know when to hire, how to hire, and how many people to hire at the service desk? If you don't know, we have a panel to try to answer that for you! Jacob White, Kincy Clark, Simone Jo Moore, Daniel Breston, and Matt Beran discuss staffing for service, available models, and training to build the best IT support team.

Following simple, straightforward, and adaptable rules to design Service Management processes was what Stefan Kempter had in mind when putting together the YaSM (Yet Another Service Management Model). However, as the name smartly implies, this idea doesn’t stand alone. Here, Stefan shares the process behind the making of the model, how it brings together different ITSM framework principles, and what organizations get from implementing it, including documents, templates and diagrams that avoid having to start every process from scratch. To finish off, he also gives out some valuable advice for other process-geeks like him.

Abby Sininger is taking her first steps in IT having landed an internship as support analyst at GRE and shares her insights into what it’s like working on the front line of a help desk. As a young adult making her way into this field of work, she talks about which skills she believes are most important for the job, her educational background and current studies, and how she first got interested in tech through the program Women in STEM. Finally, Abby gives out some advice for people with similar interests and professional goals, and goes through what she expects for her future.

ITSM is all about serving the people. And that counts for both sides of the equation. IT industry veteran James Gander walks us through the power of simulations in ITSM training and service desk environments. He highlights their ability to encourage communication and collaboration amongst teams, and real-life experiences over pure books and theory. He also shares some recent projects, such as The Project Phoenix and MarsLander, and examples of remote simulations.

James Gander has over 30 years working in the IT industry. In 2010 he left full-time employment and started serving as Managing Director of Gander Service Management. He worked in the past in many IT roles at different companies like Xansa, Waikato District Health Board, Genesis Energy, the University of Auckland, Northpower, and Carter Holt Harvey. James is also a contributor to VeriSM and has made appearances on other IT media channels, like The ITSM Crowd, Karen Ferris's Conversations, and more.

There's no point denying that IT Asset Management is a vital business process. However, implementing a strategy and improving it is no easy task. Matt Beran and David Foxen go over the most common ITAM challenges (and how to solve them). Plus, David's vast experience on the topic helped him collect (and share!) some epic fails, stories, and learnings.

Co-founder of the ITSM Academy almost 20 years ago, Lisa Schwartz knows a thing or two about how to effectively train help desk staff in their jobs. Here, she goes through the training approach that went from classroom to microlearning, highlighting however the importance of not losing the sense of community. She also shares some practical strategies to stay relevant in teaching, such as adapting to different learning types and undergoing simulations and role changings. Finally, for the company's side of things, Lisa goes through advice on how to make sure they really are getting value out of the training investment.