From Chaos to Control: Building ITAM That Can Fly

I’ve yet to meet an ITAM team that isn’t stretched thin. Most are trying to manage thousands of assets with a handful of people, maybe one of whom actually has “Asset Manager” in their title. The rest are juggling it as a side hustle between service requests, spreadsheets, and chasing down purchase orders that somehow never made it into the system.

When I hear “we just need more people,” I get it. But that’s not really the problem……….or at least it’s not the only problem.

The deeper issue is that too many ITAM practices rely on people instead of controls. Requests are treated as transactions, something to approve, fulfill, and move on from, rather than as control points that enforce good behavior. If someone can buy hardware outside the process, skip updating the CI, or decommission something without triggering a workflow, it doesn’t matter how good your people are. You’ve built a system that assumes everyone will remember to do the right thing, even when they’re exhausted.

And that’s not governance……… that’s wishful thinking.

The goal of ITAM isn’t to create more work; it’s to design a system that works without constant heroics. When controls are built into procurement, fulfillment, and lifecycle management, people become stewards, not traffic cops.

So if your ITAM team is buried under manual updates and chasing data accuracy, don’t start by asking for more headcount. Start by asking:

“Where should the control live?”

Because when the process can enforce itself, your people finally get to do the part they’re actually good at, and that's managing the strategy, not the chaos. And that's when ITAM really takes flight.