Implementing DevOps in ServiceNow

[white101]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to get some feedback from the community on how to implement DevOps practices within ServiceNow. I'm looking for ideas on how to improve collaboration between the development and operations teams, as well as how to automate our workflows.

We've implemented a few DevOps practices, such as continuous integration and delivery, but we're still having some issues. We're having trouble, for example, organizing releases across teams, as well as measuring our progress and identifying bottlenecks in our processes.

If you have any experience deploying DevOps in ServiceNow or any best practices ideas, please let me know. I'm looking forward to learning from the community and improving our development techniques.

Have a nice day!

[Vishal36]

Hi  @white101 ,

It will need more understanding of your environment and processes to share detailed suggestions. But based on what you have shared at a high level, here are my thoughts and suggestions:

1) Strengthen DevOps: You already have continuous integration between the development and operations teams. It is good to start with. Consider integrating releases across tools so all teams work per the same release timeline. You can also consider integrating ServiceNow with other teams like sales, build or pipelines to automate processes end to end.

2) Embed dashboard capability to identify process bottlenecks: Implementing only DevOps won’t be enough. There needs to be a feedback loop that raises alerts if there is any risk in operations, like if there is any customer deliverable under risk. Are there too many issues of similar patterns? What is the cycle time for production down tickets? Out of that cycle time, how long are we waiting for customers to share data? Etc. Here are some advanced metrics to watch out for:

3)Total effective SLA: Measure only the time support takes to resolve a ticket and not the time the customer takes. It helps make customer teams more responsible and helps effectively track proactive service. For example, if the ticket’s overall cycle time is 5 days. But out of 5 days, 3 days we were waiting for the customer to respond while the remaining 2 days, support was working to provide a solution, then the total effective SLA would be 2 days.

4) Open customer defects, their development stage, the release in which they are expected to be released, and quality testing for customer defects.

5) Number of tickets resolved, cycle time, flow time, potential regression analysis for customer defects (all in a single report)

6) Support engineer-wise tickets open, cycle time, response time, customer satisfaction rating, number of tickets resolved, etc.

7)Track customers whose license is due for renewal in the coming quarter and have open support tickets.

We at OpsHub, have set up advanced DevOps and metrics and have been using them extensively to monitor progress. We would be happy to share our learnings till now. Please reach out to us if you would like to set up a joint call. 

Thanks, 

Vishal

[white101]

Hi @Vishal36,

I really appreciate your support.

Thank you.

[James10101]

Hello @white101!

DevOps practices used inside ServiceNow may undoubtedly increase cooperation between development and operations teams while also automating tasks. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

1. Develop a clear DevOps strategy: Before getting into particular practices, it's critical to develop a DevOps strategy that corresponds with the aims and objectives of your organization. This approach should contain a clear knowledge of what you're attempting to accomplish, what success looks like, and how you intend to track progress.

2. Create a collaborative culture: Collaboration between development and operations teams is a major element of DevOps. It is critical to break down silos and encourage cross-team contact in order to build this culture. Holding frequent cross-functional meetings where teams can discuss concerns, share ideas, and discover possibilities for development is one approach to this.

3. Workflow automation is an important component of DevOps since it helps you to simplify operations and decrease human labor. ServiceNow's workflow automation technologies, for example, may be used to automate operations such as code testing, deployment, and monitoring. This can assist to increase efficiency and lower the chance of mistakes.

4. Implement continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD): Continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) is a fundamental DevOps practice that entails continually merging code changes into a common repository and delivering them to production. This ensures that code modifications have been extensively tested and are ready for deployment. ServiceNow provides various CI/CD tools, including the Pipeline Designer and the Continuous Integration application.

5. Use analytics to track progress: Collecting and analyzing data on your DevOps operations is critical for identifying bottlenecks and tracking progress. The Performance Analytics tool from ServiceNow may assist you in tracking metrics like deployment frequency, lead time, and mean time to recovery (MTTR). This information might assist you in identifying areas for improvement and tracking progress over time.

6. Use agile approaches: Agile methodologies like as Scrum and Kanban are frequently utilized in DevOps environments to foster cooperation and continuous improvement. The Agile Development application from ServiceNow can help you manage agile projects and measure progress using Agile metrics.

Applying DevOps practices in ServiceNow necessitates a defined plan, a collaborative culture, automation, and the use of analytics to track progress. You may enhance your development approaches and streamline your workflows by following these best practices. Best wishes!