When Chaos Takes Over: How to Get IT Requests Under Control
When Requests Become Overwhelming
Today, IT departments are not struggling with a lack of work — quite the opposite. Requests arrive by email, chat, or in person. Some get lost, while for others it is unclear who should handle them. Employees are left waiting, support teams pass requests back and forth, and management lacks the data needed to understand what is happening. The result is chaos, dissatisfied users, and growing pressure on the teams responsible for delivering services.
A typical warning sign is a help desk that exists but no longer functions as an effective system. It lacks clear rules, priorities, and visibility into who is working on what. For employees, even submitting a request can become unnecessarily complicated.
Process First, Tool Second
If a requester submits incomplete or inaccurate information, the support team has to follow up for clarification. Every manual handover takes additional time, and the same issue may end up being handled by several people. Without visibility into deadlines, capacities, and the relationships between individual devices, applications, and services, it is difficult for an organization to identify where inefficiencies and losses occur.
The goal of modern IT Service Management is not simply to introduce another system. The first step is to define how services should operate. The foundation typically includes a unified Service Desk, a service catalog, clear workflows, deadlines, and approval processes. These can then be complemented by a knowledge base, self-service portal, and reporting. Automation can take over routine activities such as assigning and categorizing requests.
AI as an Assistant, Not a Buzzword
Artificial intelligence can categorize and route requests, suggest responses, recommend relevant knowledge base articles, or summarize the history of a request. For simpler queries, users can receive answers directly from existing documentation. AI can also help identify duplicate requests.
Experience from Unicorn Systems shows that a well-designed Service Management approach can significantly reduce the number of requests that remain open for extended periods. For one client operating a portal for external customers, migrating to Jira Service Management helped reduce the average number of open requests from 100 to approximately 60, despite a growing number of projects and an increasing volume of requests.
“Modern Service Management is not primarily about choosing a tool. The greatest value comes from combining well-designed processes, clear responsibilities, knowledge, and automation. AI can then take over some of the routine work, freeing people to focus on tasks where their experience is truly needed,” says Jan Milata, Production Manager at Unicorn Cloud Systems.
The Most Common Mistake? Unnecessary Complexity
Overly complicated portals and forms are a common mistake. If users do not know what to select or how to describe their request, the problem is simply transferred to the support team. Technology alone cannot fix a poorly designed process. What matters is the right combination of simple processes, accessible knowledge, and an appropriate level of automation.
Service Management is also expanding beyond IT. The same principles can be applied in areas such as HR, finance, or facility management. Organizations want less manual work, faster request resolution, and better visibility into their services.
The Result Is Control, Not Just Another System
One platform that enables organizations to put these principles into practice is Atlassian Service Collection. This suite of tools includes, for example, Jira Service Management for managing requests and incidents, Customer Service Management for customer support, Assets for tracking infrastructure and relationships between services, and Rovo with AI agents for categorizing and automating requests. Together, these tools can address many of the needs described above. However, the key is not the use of any specific tool, but rather the integration of processes, knowledge, and automation.
Modern IT Service Management is not about enabling IT teams to simply process more requests faster. It is about creating a system in which users know where to go for help, support teams know what needs to be done, and management has visibility into how services are performing. Less chaos and less manual work mean more efficient IT operations and a better experience for the people who rely on these services.
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