CSDM Implementation

[AbosedeK]

Hello,

Please I need guide on how to implement CSDM in real life project (i.e the practical process on how to implement CSDM). Thank you

[Michael Dul]

Hi AbosedeK,

Hope you are well.

There is no one size fit all process to moving with your organisation to CSDM. It very much depends on the outcomes you need to support, what already is deployed, how can you make what you are doing real, and which elements of the model you actually need in the long run to support your organisations Strategy.

My starting point though is always data taxonomy, principles, ownership, and minimal viable model.

1. For every object you want to use, define what it actually means in the context of your organisation. This will help you to talk to your peers using the language they understand.
2. Principles. CSDM is overwhelming for most people. I try to protect as much as I can until appropriate decisions are made, on top of that:
   • Discovery First: Data sources should be your main source if possible
   • Data Lifecycle: we do not allow data without knowing, how it gets to the system, how is it maintained, by who, and how it ends its lifecycle. Easiest if you have a dedicated Module to do that, but not all companies that have ITSM have for example ITBM.
   • Business Case: who will use the data and how, this is extremely important as the best academical model can be broken by real life. I remember a situation when there were 1000 business offerings (they were beautiful) but none of the customers understood what they are. Service Desk was non the wiser so they always selected one offering during the INC process. Such data models can work but you then need to support them with other functionalities.
   • Try to keep the business side simple, and the technical at the level of complexity you need to operate efficiently
   • Usefulness vs. Maintainability - if you break elements into small pieces, you will need an army to maintain it (unless you automate)
   • Start where you are - aka. Don't throw the Baby out with the bathwater.
3. Ownership, and I cannot stress this enough. This is one of the principles, but warrants a section on its own. What I go for is 4 levels of data ownership:
   • Taxonomy: Who owns what the object (table/class) is
   • Standard: Who owns what each filed and relationship for that object (table/class) is
   • Integrity: Who is accountable to make sure all objects are collected
   • Record: Who owns individual objects and what can they do
4. Minimal Viable Model. Spend some time to decide what you have and what are you trying to get out of that (even if this is a pragmatic move to support future ServiceNow upgrades). Always consider what modules you have deployed. Some products like SAM/HAM have much more sophisticated data requirements than what you see on the CSDM overview.

Now if you want to explore the options further, I have attached CSDM Primer. This is a resource which I believe is attached to the CSDM course on NowLearning (cannot recommend it enough). I found it very useful and used it to open up many a conversations. My personal preferred approach for the companies that are primarily ITSM Module first is Crawl > Walk (from the Maturity based framework) and then switch to the Value Oriented framework. This from my experience allows you to create a baseline that most ITSM practitioners understand and support majority of ITSM use cases, and then move to whatever the strategy requires.

Please note that the Primer I have attached is based on CSDM 3.0. There might be an updated one.

EDIT: One more thing after a moment of reflection. A personal recommendation. I am a very big supporter of Data Self-Healing. Support with your processes the Organisation to do the right thing. If you have a lot of wrong data, you can adjust the ITSM processes in the way that encourage data creation and maintenance. E.g. Changes that are associated to App Services because their CIs are in the Map do not have to go to CAB or are flagged as lower risk. Make sure people who need to own the data can do it easily. The system needs to help them do the right thing. If you don't operationalise your CSDM all the data changes and maintenance will fall on your Platform Support, you probably don't want that 😉

Hope that helps, if I can help you more, let me know.

Best Regards,

Michael

[AbosedeK]

Hi @Michael Dul,

Thank you for your response. I there a video that you can recommend for me to watch to help with the real -time guidance/explanation.

[Alessandro Alme]

Hi @AbosedeK.

Check CMDB and CSDM Data Foundations success pack in Now Create: https://learning.servicenow.com/nowcreate?id=sp_overview&nc_ai_search=true&sp_id=adec93f81bd31410134... (the access requires login in Now Learning).

Thanks,

Alessandro.

[AbosedeK]

Hi @Alessandro Alme,

Thank you for your response. I there a video that you can recommend for me to watch to help with the real -time guidance/explanation.