Business Smart Customisation Governance - Real World Examples that have worked

[ChrisPurple]

Hi,

ServiceNow talk about a process for "Business smart" customiation.

The idea is to define a "Business value score" (1 no value-5 Manadtory) and definition for proposed customisations alongside a "Complexity score  (Low to High) for proposed customisation. You then bring the two together to decide if business value outweights tehcnical risk.
E.g. if a request gets weighted as "Highly complex", then the business value it deliveres needs to be at least a 4 or 5. Where definition for 4 is "Customisation is a "Must have" to realise a business value objective and/or adoption requirements. 

Has anyone had experience setting up a process like that which has successfully aligned with the business. What tips can you share form a process and technical deliverable perspective e.g. what register and key data elements do you capture to allow continual audit of customisations to deprecate those that later in life aren't delivering business value?

Business-smart customization (servicenow.com)

[Mark Manders]

This is question that has come up several times over the last years at any customer or employer I have worked for and I am very curious to the answers of others, to see if there some how is a process to align this.

What often resulted in stopping to set it up, was the first sentence of your last paragraph "...that which has successfully aligned with the business". 
Where business comes in, they often don't care about the complexity score. They want it, they need it, so you build it. Rarely, a small requirement with an estimation of 20K in cost and no assurance it will still work after the next update, got canceled because of these reasons, but more often than not, they just don't care. They are not responsible for the cost, or are pressured by others.

A process like this would really help in getting true value enhancements through, because everyone understands that risks are (or aren't) involved and how the backlog is ranked. I am absolutely convinced this can help in prioritizing and keeping the backlog cleaner, because all parties really have to think about it.