Big user of Jira? Here's a short discussion on integrating Jira with ServiceNow

[Richard91]

At the recent SAFe Summit in Nashville, one of the most common questions I received was "How does ServiceNow  integrate with Jira?" so here are a few thoughts about using Jira alongside ServiceNow when it comes to Agile practices.

The first thing to note is that there are major advantages to having the development planning and tracking processes actually happening in ServiceNow, but at the minimum we recommend integrating Jira data with ServiceNow. This can be using Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) for work item tracking and/or using the DevOps pipeline integrations that are available in ITSM Pro (DevOps Change Velocity and DevOps Config). These allows teams to continue in their current tool while evaluating other benefits of doing some or all aspects of agile with ServiceNow. It also enables broader portfolio management under SPM, and potentially automated change approvals via ITSM – or at least tracking those changes for later auditing, reporting and root cause analysis.

Many organizations that use Jira will still use ServiceNow for agile planning. This is because it can be helpful to use ServiceNow to harmonize and manage hybrid environments – meaning environments that use a mix of agile and more waterfall-type methodologies, or hybrid in the sense of different teams using a range of different tools, or teams using different processes within similar tools (Jira, Azure Boards, ServiceNow etc.)

Our single platform for agile in SPM also allows for different Agile approaches like SAFe, scrum etc. with advanced tools like big-room planning (that can incorporate all work including, for example, defects and other work items from service management), while still giving a single data model connected to everything else we do in the platform. 

Adding our ITSM Pro DevOps integration to the picture means we can understand the entire development and delivery process from end-to-end, from planning through build and test and on to deployment and operation. We can use this connected data for automated governance with change management, and as a very sophisticated audit and reporting capability for the entire process, taking us in the direction of value stream management.

Note that our development tools integrations cover multiple development platforms (Jira/Jenkins, GitLab, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps etc.) 

Are you connecting ServiceNow to Jira and other development tools? What recommendations would you share?