IT Request Management: 7 Tips to Eliminate Coordination Delays

Your IT team spends more time chasing approvals than fixing problems. A password reset takes fifteen minutes. A software access request? Three days of waiting on managers, Finance sign-offs, and Slack threads that go nowhere.

Fast IT request management cuts through this coordination chaos. When you handle requests efficiently, your team stops playing human API between departments and starts doing strategic work. Better request management means faster resolutions, happier employees, and IT teams that actually have time for projects.

This article breaks down seven essential tips to map your workflows, automate cross-departmental handoffs, and eliminate the coordination overhead killing your productivity.

Why IT Request Management Fails: The Coordination Problem

Most IT request management tools solve the wrong problem. They track tickets beautifully, but can't handle what actually slows you down: coordinating across departments.

Here's a real example. A designer needs Figma access. Simple request, right? Here's what actually happens:

1. Designer DMs you in Slack
2. You check with their manager in Product
3. Wait for Finance to approve the budget
4. Provision the license in your admin panel
5. Update HR's software tracking spreadsheet
6. Follow up with the designer to confirm

The technical work? Five minutes. The coordination? Three days.

Tools like Jira Service Management and Freshservice track each step. But they can't talk to Product, Finance, or HR. They can't automatically route approvals. They can't pull employee data from your HRIS or check budget availability. They just sit there while you manually ping everyone.

We’ve heard it from our customers before they switched to Siit:

"I spend 70% of my day on password resets instead of strategic work." - Solo IT Manager

"I spend more time coordinating between HR and IT than doing strategic people work." - HR Operations Lead

"Every simple request requires 5 people across 3 departments." - Operations Director

Your tools track the work. You do the coordination. That's the problem.

7 Tips to Improve Your IT Request Management Process

So how do you fix it? You can't rip out your entire stack overnight. But you can start fixing the coordination problem today. These seven tips will help you identify bottlenecks, automate handoffs, and get your time back.

1. Map Your Workflow (Not Just Your Tickets)

When your handoff count rivals the actual work steps, you're bleeding time to coordination overhead. That's what mapping reveals.

Pick a common workflow like software access or equipment provisioning. Grab a whiteboard and trace it from start to finish.

Where does the request come in? Which departments touch it? How many approvals does it need? Track how long each step sits idle and count every handoff between departments.

The hidden loops jump out immediately. If a request spends more than 40% of its life sitting in someone's inbox tagged "waiting on X," you've found your coordination problem.

2. Build Your Help Desk Where You Work

Most IT requests already happen in Slack anyway. Build your system around that reality, and you'll capture everything without fighting human nature.

Here's what's happening right now: your designer DMs you "Need Figma access, thanks!" while your help desk portal sits empty.

Why? The portal means context switching. Stop working, open a browser, fill out a form, wait for a ticket number. Slack is typing one sentence and moving on. People aren't avoiding structure—they're avoiding friction.

So pull the structure into Slack instead of forcing portal adoption. You get the conversation context, the audit trail, and proper tracking without making employees jump through hoops.

3. Use AI for Repetitive Questions, Not Complex Requests

AI-powered self-service can cut your ticket volume by 30%. But only for the right requests.

Here's what works: VPN connection instructions, password reset procedures, software access policies, and common troubleshooting steps. Pure IT tasks that don't need human judgment.

Here's what doesn't: Multi-department requests that need manager approval and Finance sign-off. Anything requiring coordination across teams still needs a human.

The key is linking your knowledge base (Notion or Confluence) directly into Slack. Answers surface instantly without forcing employees to switch tabs or hunt through wikis.

4. Automate the Coordination, Not Just the Tasks

The work itself is fast. The coordination kills you. Automation fixes this by routing tasks between departments the second they're triggered—no inbox babysitting required.

Take employee onboarding as an example:

Manual path: HR enters start date → Email IT → Wait for response → Chase approval → Create accounts → Email Finance → Update systems → Follow up with manager → 15 minutes of work, 2 hours of "Where's the form?"

Automated path: HR enters start date → Okta creates account → Jamf enrolls Mac → BambooHR updates profile → Rippling adds to payroll → Slack sends welcome → Manager gets checklist → 15 minutes, period.

Same work. Zero coordination overhead.

Start with high-volume, low-variation workflows: Slack channel creation, VPN access provisioning, software license requests, equipment checkout. Quick wins build faith in the system and free chunks of your calendar you forgot existed.

5. Route Requests by Coordination Level, Not Just Priority

Legacy SLAs treat all requests the same. A laptop purchase waits in the same queue as a password reset. That's the problem.

Sort requests into three buckets based on how much coordination they need:

Bucket 1: Pure IT (you own end-to-end)

• Password resets
• VPN issues
• Equipment troubleshooting

Bucket 2: Coordination-Light (one quick approval)

• Standard software access
• Common hardware requests

Bucket 3: Coordination-Heavy (multiple departments)

• New vendor software procurement
• Cross-functional tool implementation
• Complex access provisioning

Smart routing uses metadata from your HRIS and IAM tools (like Okta or Google Workspace) to automatically send coordination-heavy tickets into the orchestration lane. AI triage spots "needs finance approval" in the notes and routes it to the right approver instantly.

6. Automate Status Updates at Every Handoff

Most delays come from unclear task ownership. Someone's waiting on you. You think they have it. The request sits idle for days.

The fix is automatic status updates at every state change. No one should have to ask, "Where's my request?"

Examples:

• "Waiting on Finance approval."
• "Device shipped, tracking number attached."
• "Access granted, check your email."

Store full context with each ticket so the next person sees the whole thread, not just the last note. Push updates to Slack or Teams in real time—don't make people hunt through email digests or check portals.

This sounds basic, but most tools make status updates an afterthought. Build them in by default.

7. Measure Coordination Time, Not Just Ticket Volume

Ticket volume tells you nothing. You need to track where time actually disappears.

Focus on these metrics:

• Time in each workflow stage
• Number of approvals per request
• Re-open rate after "resolved"
• Idle time between handoffs

When you can show "we saved 20 hours of idle time per ticket," executive buy-in writes itself. Hard numbers beat gut feels.

But metrics alone won't sustain change. Your workflows touch HR, Finance, and Ops—get their feedback too. Run quick embedded CSAT surveys after resolution to see if the new process actually feels faster. Push results straight into Slack, tagged to the owner, so you can fix problems before they calcify.

Kill the coordination pain, and other departments become your biggest advocates for refining the system.

How to Get Faster IT Request Management

Legacy tools were built for a different era. They assume employees will adopt portals, departments work in silos, and IT owns the entire workflow.

Modern reality? Employees live in Slack and Teams. Work requires cross-departmental coordination. IT is the orchestration layer, not the owner.

That's the gap Siit fills. It's the first help desk designed for cross-departmental coordination, working inside the tools your team already uses. Here's how it delivers faster IT request management:

• Requests start where conversations happen. Employees ask questions in Slack, and Siit automatically creates structured tickets with full context. No portal adoption. No forms. Just natural conversation that becomes a tracked request.
• Approvals route across departments automatically. When a software request needs manager approval and budget sign-off, Siit orchestrates the complete workflow across IT, HR, and Finance. It pulls employee data from your HRIS and permission context from your IAM tools to route everything automatically.
• Status updates appear in the same thread. No hunting through portals. No "checking on my ticket" messages. Status changes appear in the Slack thread where the request started, giving everyone real-time visibility.
• AI resolves repetitive requests instantly. Siit's AI agents handle common questions in natural conversation, resolving simple requests automatically while routing complex issues to the right person immediately.

No rip-and-replace. No portal adoption. Just faster requests and more time for the work that actually matters.

Get Faster IT Request Management with Siit

Your team and tools work fine. The problem is coordination overhead between departments. Start by mapping your workflows to find where requests sit idle, then automate handoffs across IT, HR, and Finance. Measure coordination time, not just ticket volume, to prove the impact.

Siit is the first Slack-native help desk designed to automate cross-departmental coordination. It works where your team already works, with no portal adoption and no manual handoffs between departments.

Book a demo to see how it works.