About
Nicole West.
Practitioner. Platform product owner. Speaker.
ITSM Unboxed is where Nicole shares what she has learned from two decades of building service-management practices, implementing enterprise technology, and connecting strategy with day-to-day service delivery. The work here is practical, practitioner-led, and grounded in real implementations.
Philosophy
Strategy only matters if it changes the work.
Nicole works at the intersection of strategy and execution — the place where frameworks meet real organizations, where platform decisions have operational consequences, and where the gap between what leadership intends and what teams actually experience tends to live.
Her approach is grounded in the belief that good service management is not about compliance with a framework — it is about building systems that actually work for the people who use them and the organizations that depend on them.
The work documented here reflects that philosophy: not theoretical, not aspirational, but drawn from real implementations, real constraints, and real outcomes.
Background
Experience
IT Service Management Leader
Enterprise Technology Organizations · 20+ years
Built and led service management practices across enterprise environments — from foundational process design to mature operating models.
Platform Product Owner
HaloITSM · Current
Responsible for platform strategy, configuration governance, and the alignment of tooling decisions with organizational service management maturity.
Service Management Office Architect
Multiple Organizations · Ongoing
Designed and stood up SMO functions that unified distributed service management practices into integrated operating models.
Academic Background
Education & Certifications
ITIL 4 Managing Professional
ITIL 4 Foundation
HDI Support Center Manager
HDI Support Center Analyst
Certifications reflect ongoing professional development across service management frameworks and practitioner disciplines.
Expertise
Areas of Focus
Service Management Office Design
ITSM Platform Strategy & Ownership
Incident & Problem Management
Change Enablement
Service Catalog Design
Knowledge Management
Release Management
IT Workforce Strategy
Service Management Automation
Continual Improvement
Governance & Operating Models
Stakeholder Engagement
Speaking & Community
Speaking & Professional Community
Sharing the work beyond the organization.
Nicole has presented at industry events and community forums on topics ranging from platform ownership to workforce strategy in service management.
HDI Conference
Platform Ownership in Practice
A practitioner's perspective on what it means to own an ITSM platform — not just administer it — and how product ownership thinking changes platform outcomes.
itSMF USA Fusion
Building the SMO: Lessons from the Field
Practical lessons from standing up a Service Management Office — what worked, what did not, and what the frameworks do not tell you.
HDI Local Chapter
Workforce Strategy for Service Management Teams
How to think about team structure, role design, and talent development in a maturing service management organization.
itSMF USA Fusion
Automation Without Chaos
A framework for approaching service management automation — sequencing, governance, and avoiding the common failure modes.
Beyond the stage
Nicole is an active contributor to the ITSM practitioner community — participating in peer forums, mentoring practitioners navigating platform and practice challenges, and engaging with the broader conversation about where service management is headed.
Community of Practice · HDI · itSMF USA
The conversations that happen outside the conference room are often where the most useful thinking happens.
The work is here. The thinking is open.
ITSM Unboxed exists to make practical service management knowledge more accessible — not as a consulting pitch, but as a genuine contribution to the practitioner community.