The ITSM Industry’s Repeating Failure Pattern

Key Takeaways

• ABC cards show business‑impact blind spot for 20 years
• 60‑70% rate poorly on strategic fit, leadership, culture, skills, improvement
• Renaming presentation boosted engagement fivefold, but content unchanged
• AI projects fail 95% for same five reasons as ITSM
• Behavior change, not tools, is the real barrier to success

Pulse Analysis

The ITSM industry’s chronic blind spot—ignoring business impact—has been quantified by Paul Wilkinson’s ABC cards for more than twenty years. By sorting failures into attitude, behavior, and culture, the cards expose a recurring misalignment: technical teams chase solutions that are already obsolete, illustrated by the iconic floppy‑disc‑in‑hand rocket image. Survey results from 2021 and a repeat in 2025 confirm that 60‑70% of organizations still score weakly on five core capabilities—strategic fit, leadership, culture, skills, and continual improvement—showing that new frameworks or certifications have not shifted the needle.

This pattern resurfaces in today’s AI hype. A 2025 MIT study found that 95% of generative‑AI pilots fail to deliver expected value, with the same five capability gaps identified in the ITSM surveys. Companies rush to adopt AI because competitors do, yet they neglect to define measurable outcomes, align the initiative with business strategy, or build the cultural and skill foundations needed for sustainable adoption. The result is a repeat of the "floppy‑disc" scenario—investments launched after the market has already moved on, delivering little return.

The remedy lies not in more tools or certifications but in systematic behavior change. Leaders must articulate clear success metrics before any rollout, make accountability visible, and use conversational diagnostics like the ABC cards to surface hidden resistance. Training should prioritize applying insights on the job rather than passing exams, and organizations need to invest in continuous coaching, feedback loops, and cultural incentives that reward learning from failure. Only by addressing the human and organizational dimensions can the industry break the cycle and ensure that future technology investments, whether ITSM frameworks or AI platforms, generate real business value.