It’s that time of the year again, and although we can’t physically go to Orlando, ServiceNow has made their Knowledge 2020 conference available online.
Let’s take this opportunity to elaborate on the best way to maximise the value of your ServiceNow platform.
the platform.
The ServiceNow platform supports more and more processes and applications on each release. With so many attractive features, having a concrete plan is the best way to keep creating value along the way. Building that plan (= your platform roadmap) is the necessary foundation to achieve credibility and success.
You can apply the basic principles detailed below to any enterprise service management platform and, probably, many of the major tools available in your professional environment.
Looking at our own customer base, we notice that most companies tend to start with the ITSM modules of ServiceNow. In this common use-case, the ServiceNow platform is managed and paid for by IT. Quick value realisation means that other departments in your company are rapidly drawn towards the platform and soon enough, non-IT departments as well as business stakeholders will jump in and want to take advantage of it. This trend of accelerating and coping with the expectations of these new stakeholders is the latest challenge of the product owner.
the platform roadmap: a driver for your digital transformation.
Digital transformation is a topic that concerns the entire organisation, not only IT. As such, to drive a successful digital transformation, you need to create a common culture and vision. Shared and successful experiences on the ServiceNow platform are the perfect opportunity to create that digital culture across the company to accelerate your digital transformation.
When building your roadmap, consider the following pillars:
- capabilities needed in the future (what is needed to fulfil your vision).
- processes supporting them (and when to model or review those).
- roles needed to support these processes.
- applications or modules that need to be put in place on the platform.
- licenses volume required to achieve the objectives.
It’s good practice to directly engage with people outside of your own department, such as business stakeholders, finance management, security responsibles, application owners and human resources.
Visibility and transparency will help you secure support from beyond your usual sphere of influence. It will also bring in new ideas and help emphasising the business value of the platform. This is one of the necessary steps to evolve from being viewed as a “cost-centre” towards what we call a “Trusted Value Partner” of your business.
WHAT IS A TRUSTED VALUE PARTNER?
It’s a partner for the business, entrusted to support entire business or product lines. It provides innovation with direct impact on business value, market shares and differentiators. You can trust this partner to take technology decisions and match IT costs with business value.
make it S.M.A.R.T.
Your roadmap will also include KPIs and expected benefits. By setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-related) objectives within your roadmap, you can start collecting current and trend data to demonstrate your successes and achievements along the way.
On top of the usual KPIs targeting finance, process efficiency and number of FTEs, remember to include user and employee experience metrics from the start. Adoption will dictate success and you will drive it by putting the user experience as a primary goal.
Before committing to any major investments, get in touch with your integration partner to help you build a business case and make a business value assessment.
don’t treat your roadmap as a painting on the wall.
A roadmap is not a static tool to be put in the drawer (or on the wall). Without regular review and improvement cycles, a created roadmap becomes outdated quickly.
Monitor the underlying needs towards the changes in market trends, economic situations, product evolutions, feedback from your users & employees, operations and management, and update your roadmap accordingly.
A strong partnership with your integration partner is worth a lot, as they will have a global view of the products, vendor roadmaps, partners-only insights and lessons learned from other customers using the platform.
To be realistic and trusted, your roadmap should not only contain new processes, tools and modules, but also the platform upgrade path, defect follow-up and major improvements related to your currently deployed toolsets.
roadmaps as a company mindset.
As mentioned before, these guidelines are not only relevant for the ServiceNow platform, they will also apply to other major enterprise-wide platforms and tools. The product owners for these tools have their own vision and aligned roadmaps, and at this point an open mindset will bring people together and create new opportunities.
Information sharing becomes an influencing tool that allows you to plan improvements with a cross-product vision. Here are some key discussion topics when interacting with other major product owners:
- is there any integration planned into current or future tools?
- is there obsolete tooling where functionalities could be replaced by the platform?
- are there new capabilities positioned on the roadmap of other systems that you could also benefit from?
OUR ADVICE
When an integration opportunity arises, don’t wait too long. Plan your integration and analysis well in advance to reap the rewards early.
Organisational change must also be taken into account. This is where you must include the business stakeholders into your roadmap review and building activities. Aligning IT with the business goals has been a challenge for many organisations. Only by sharing the same goals you can truly align.
Creating and disclosing your building process of the platform roadmap with the business stakeholders will de facto allow them to share their strategy and vision with IT. A common mindset will improve the envisioned roadmap.
work in manageable increments.
Be as agile when designing your platform strategy, as you aim to be in your development processes.
When reviewing your roadmap, be sure to include quick-wins and adapt it to the current context.
- Regularly connect with your integration partner, to assess your current situation and get external validation of your choices.
- Survey your employees, customers and stakeholders. Not only on what is available but also ask them what they think is missing.
leverage all the resources available to your integration partner.
Building an efficient, realistic and successful roadmap becomes much easier if you can rely on a trusted ServiceNow partner. Breaking the traditional silos requires a holistic view across the business, IT and beyond.
At Devoteam, on top of our ServiceNow team of experts, we can involve skilled professionals ranging from DevOps specialists, infrastructure and cloud experts, cyber security experts, business analysts and our dedicated sister company Devoteam Management Consulting.
We hope these insights will help you realise a long-lasting value out of your ServiceNow platform.
This blog post is part of a series that elaborates on the ServiceNow Knowledge 2020 conference.
For any additional information, please reach out to our practice manager IT Service Excellence Arnaud Delcroix via email. Find out more about our Business Process Excellence offer here.
Devoteam has been recognised as the 2020 ServiceNow EMEA Elite Partner of the Year.