Toward revealing concealed risks for agile IT service management practices

Rapid changes in the business environment have created opportunities and challenges. Businesses need to be more responsive to competitive environments and customers’ requirements. Business agility involves implementing agile practices across organizational functions. Agile processes are especially critical in IT Service Management (ITSM). When agile processes are implemented to meet changing business and customer demands in ITSM environments, the speed and leanness characterizing agile practices often lead to agile practices not always explicitly addressing all underlying risks. Customer demands for fast solutions often means that risks are not attended to with necessary thoroughness. Some risks are not apparent and these concealed risks need to be revealed and managed. The failure to completely address risks involves errors of commission and errors of omission. Coupling agile business, agile systems development, and agile ITSM practices with effective risk management approaches within the agile framework is a suggested approach to manage risk in this evolving environment.