10 Service Management Resolutions for 2026 to Improve IT and Business Outcomes

Every January, teams set goals to move faster, reduce friction, and improve outcomes.

But when we talk to IT and business teams about service management, the same issues come up year after year. Manual work that should be automated. Workflows that look fine on paper but fall apart in real life. Portals that feel harder than sending an email. Knowledge that technically exists, but no one can find it or trust it.

Based on what our FMX consultants see and fix every day, here are the service management resolutions that will make the biggest impact in 2026, whether you’re focused on ITSM or expanding service management across the business.

1) Stop Manually Setting Priority. Make SLAs Mean Something.

If every ticket starts as “low priority” until someone changes it, SLA reporting becomes meaningless.

Resolution: Build a practical priority model using impact and urgency, even if it isn’t perfect. The goal is consistency so tickets flow in the right order and SLAs actually reflect reality.

What this unlocks: Better triage, clearer reporting, and fewer escalations driven by guesswork.

2) Automate Onboarding and Offboarding Using Assets

Onboarding and offboarding are where service management either works or breaks down.

When teams have to manually check multiple systems to figure out what someone has, laptops, access, accounts, things get missed and timelines slip.

Resolution: Use Assets as your system of record so onboarding and offboarding automatically generate the right tasks the moment a request is submitted.

What this unlocks: Fewer missed steps, faster completion, and less reliance on tribal knowledge.

3) Fix Access Management With Real Ownership and Approvals

Access requests often go to the wrong people because the system doesn’t actually know who owns what.

A manager approving access to a shared mailbox is a common example. The mailbox owner should be involved too.

Resolution: Define ownership, approvers, and dependencies so access requests route to the right people automatically.

What this unlocks: Cleaner approvals, faster access, and stronger governance.

4) Simplify Your Portal and Request Catalog

If your portal has too many tiles, too many forms, and too many options, users will bypass it.

We see environments with hundreds of catalog options spread across multiple forms. The result is always the same. Users give up and describe the issue manually instead.

Resolution: Reduce complexity. Simplify categories. Cut options. Design for how users actually think, not for perfect reporting.

What this unlocks: Higher adoption, better request quality, and fewer misrouted tickets.

5) Reduce Clicks and Friction Everywhere

If it takes 10 to 15 minutes just to figure out which form to use, users will email or message someone instead.

If login is painful, they will not bother.

Resolution: Make it fast to submit and track requests. Remove unnecessary steps. Use SSO where it makes sense. Treat user experience as a requirement, not a nice-to-have.

What this unlocks: More portal usage, fewer side-channel requests, and better data.

6) Lock Down Workflows So People Can’t Bypass the Process

Approvals and transitions only work if they are enforced.

When users or agents can skip steps, intentionally or not, the process becomes unreliable.

Resolution: Add guardrails. Use transition restrictions, role-based permissions, and workflow rules that reflect real responsibilities.

What this unlocks: Fewer process gaps, stronger compliance, and clearer accountability.

7) Use “Waiting on User” Status Properly and Measure It

Not every delay is an SLA failure. Often, teams are blocked waiting for end users to respond.

Resolution: Create a true “Waiting on User” status that requires a question or comment, runs on a timer, and can be reported on. Track how often users stall progress and use that data to improve communication.

What this unlocks: Fairer SLA reporting, better follow-ups, and clearer expectations.

8) Treat Moves as a Separate Process

Role changes, department shifts, and location moves are complex and often overlooked.

They are not onboarding. They are not offboarding. They are both.

Resolution: Build a dedicated Moves workflow that clearly defines what gets removed, what gets added, and who owns each step.

What this unlocks: Less access creep, smoother transitions, and fewer forgotten tasks.

9) Make Knowledge Management a Real Practice

Most teams have some knowledge articles. Very few maintain them.

Outdated knowledge is worse than no knowledge because it creates rework and erodes trust.

Resolution: Assign ownership. Set review cycles. Tie updates to change management. Start small with a handful of high-impact articles and expand using ticket data.

What this unlocks: Ticket deflection, faster resolutions, and less repetitive work.

10) Use Automation and AI to Support Humans

AI can help, but it cannot fix a broken foundation.

The best results come when teams automate repetitive work, surface the right information at the right time, and keep humans involved where judgment matters.

Resolution: Start with high-value automation like routing, task creation, and knowledge surfacing. Add self-service and AI gradually once the core processes are solid.

What this unlocks: Scale, consistency, and a better experience for both agents and end users.

Bonus Resolution: Practice What We Preach

Even internal teams struggle when there are too many portals, unclear processes, or requests that disappear.

Service management only works when it is used consistently by everyone.

Want Help Prioritizing This?

You don’t need to do everything at once.

A strong approach is to simplify the user experience, fix the highest-friction workflows first, often onboarding, offboarding, and access, then layer in automation and knowledge with clear ownership.

If you want a second set of eyes, FMX consultants can help you focus on the changes that will deliver the biggest impact.

Let’s make 2026 the year service management actually feels easier.