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In the world of IT Service Management (ITSM), the "boots on the ground" (Service Desk, Technicians, Sys Admins) get most of the spotlight because they are the ones visible to the end users. However, someone has to design the "rules of the game" before anyone can play.
The creation of the ITSM model, the processes, policies, governance, and architecture, is typically managed by a combination of strategic and architectural roles. Depending on the size of the organisation, these might be individual people or a dedicated department.
This is the "Chief Engineer" of the service management world. While a Technical Architect designs infrastructure, software, and clouds, the ITSM Architect designs the workflows and data structures.
They define how different processes (Incident, Change, Problem, etc.) talk to each other and along with the data schema for the CMDB (Configuration Management Database) to ensure that the ITSM tool is configured to reflect the business's logic. They may also define what a "Service" looks like (e.g., "Remote Work Bundle"), what its Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are, and what the underlying costs and components are, or may be undertaken by a Service Architect.
Every major process (e.g., Change) should have one owner. This person is accountable for the design, documentation, and continuous improvement of that specific process. They decide the "Policy" for example, "What constitutes a Major Incident?" or "Who has the authority to approve an Emergency Change?"
In mature or large-scale enterprises, there is often a formal department called the Service Management Office (SMO) or the ITSM Governance Team. This group acts as the governing body. They ensure that the processes designed by the Process Owners do not conflict with each other. They set the overarching ITSM Strategy and ensure it aligns with the business's goals (e.g., ISO 20000 compliance or moving toward an Agile/DevOps model).
When we shift from IT Service Management (ITSM) to Enterprise Service Management (ESM), the stakes get higher and the "room where it happens" gets a lot more crowded.
In ESM, you are taking the workflows, portals, and logic of IT and applying them to HR, Facilities, Legal, and Finance. Because these departments speak different languages, the role of the "creator" moves away from pure IT architecture and toward organisational design.
In ESM, you cannot just have an IT guy tell HR how to manage a harassment claim. You need a high-level leader who views the entire company as a "service provider."
The Digital Transformation Lead, adopting a Service Design approach, defines the Unified Service Experience. They ensure that whether an employee is ordering a laptop (IT) or a new desk chair (Facilities), the experience feels identical. Time is spent breaking down silos and being less worried about server uptime and more worried about the Total Employee Experience (EX).
Since ESM affects the whole company, "creation" is rarely the job of one person. Most mature organisations form a Centre of Excellence. Using HR as an example, this is a multidisciplinary squad including an ITSM Architect, an HR Process Lead, a Facilities Manager, and a UX Designer. Together, they develop the Global Design Template that ensures that every department uses the same priority levels, the same "Request" vs. "Incident" logic, and the same reporting standards, while still allowing HR to keep their data private from IT.
Another key role to the success of an ESM programme, is that of the Business Relationship Manager.
They interface with the heads of department such as Finance or Legal to "extract" their manual processes (like email chains and spreadsheets) and turn them into structured service models. Translating a vague business need ("We need a better way to onboard people") into a process definition that the ESM platform can execute.
Subject Matter Experts also play a critical role. t’s important that In ESM, the "Process Owner" for a departmental workflow, must be from that department, e.g. The process owner for an HR workflow must be from HR. Whilst IT might provide the tool, the HR SME defines the policy. They decide who is allowed to see payroll data, what the legal requirements for a signature are, and what the deadline is for a benefits change.
The reason you do not hear about these creators much is that in many organisations, ITSM just "accidently" becomes ESM. A Facilities manager sees the IT portal, thinks "I want my lightbulb requests to look like that," and IT just copies the template over. This usually leads to a mess. The organisations that succeed are the ones that treat Service Design as a formal professional role, essentially "Internal Product Management", where the "Product" is the way work gets done.