How to think about planning your ServiceNow digital transformation program

[Stephen Farrar]

How to think about planning your ServiceNow digital transformation program

I recently worked with a customer who was implementing ServiceNow to replace their existing ITSM tool. Most people would agree this is a pretty common scenario for a ServiceNow implementation, and they would be right, however, with any migration like this there are always intricacies that come up due to all the different factors involved:

• Is this a greenfields (start from scratch) implementation or is there some existing ServiceNow footprint?
• Is the customer self-implementing, or is there a partner involved?
• Are there other third-parties that need to be part of the program? (e.g. Managed Service Providers, Call center team)

So given that background, the ask for us was to both review the plan and program they had come up with and provide leading practice guidance on how we (as ServiceNow) would plan the transformation if we were doing it.

In this article, I’ll go through the different factors we considered, what the customer needed to think about and ultimately how we went about putting together the initial timeframes.

But first, why should you care what I have to say?

• I am a ServiceNow Certified Master Architect
• I’ve been working in ServiceNow Professional Services (Customer Outcomes/Expert Services) since 2015.
• I’ve worked across a number of different roles during that time: Technical Consultant (implementing products), Platform Architect (providing strategic guidance for customers running ServiceNow), and currently a Solution Architect (designing solutions using multiple ServiceNow products and providing technical advisory and guidance for implementation programs).
• I’ve worked across a number of different industries and digital transformation projects during that time, including both Commercial enterprise and Regulated organisations.

Getting Started

We initially asked the customer what they had already done and were doing currently – this included the workstreams already established and the resources in place – including their technical skills. This also covered what their overall plan currently looked like.

We took some time to digest that and planned a series of workshops that would cover the factors I’ll work through later on in this article, but also areas we wanted to follow up and drill in to before the workshops.

Ultimately this led us to developing a workshop agenda that included working through transformation program considerations, as well as Core/Foundation workshop agenda items to make sure the platform was setup correctly.

Workshops

Our workshops ultimately needed to provide an implementation roadmap that would cover at least the next 12 months of the program:

• What products would be implemented
• What teams and resources would be required
• What would the scope be
• What sequence would this follow

With that end in mind, we developed the workshops to cover the following factors that are critical to developing a clear implementation roadmap for the program.

You can use these as discussion points to work through as you plan your transformation journey.

Drivers and Strategic Imperatives

• What was the driving force behind the implementation of the ServiceNow program
• Hopefully these are aligned to company goals
• Usually these will have been part of the business case
• Ideally these will have some form of measurement.
• These align to the ‘Envision’ phase of Now-Value methodology – I’d highly encourage you to learn about this if you’re not already familiar: https://www.servicenow.com/success/now-value.html

What does success look like?

• This is to try and tease out the difference between any requirements, or scope that have been provided, and what the various stakeholders actually want.
• This is not intended to be the same as the drivers/imperatives above, but rather opening up that floor to get the unfiltered input from everyone involved.
• It's also a good way to understand where future aspirations may lie, and any limitations in goals vs timelines vs budget.

Timelines

• What timeframe do we have, and what is the scope to be fit within that timeframe?
• Is the timeline ‘next 12 months’?
• Do we need to consider later phases?
• What are the drop dead dates?
• What are our starting requirements that we can use to prioritise items for delivery?
  • You can adjust this depending on what product workshops (e.g. Now Create workshops for the various products) have or haven’t been run, but usually there will be some requirement input to work from
• Are there other items that we are trying to deliver? (Perhaps lower priority – nice to haves?)
• Is there a definition of Minimum viable product?
• Who makes the call on what are the absolute must haves?
  • Do we have Product Owners? (Current or envisioned).
  • And what date are these 'absolute must haves' required by?
• What do we need to deliver when?

Dependencies

• What are the dependencies between deliverables that we need to be aware of?
  • From customer perspective.
  • From third-party e.g. MSP perspective.
  • From ServiceNow e.g. product perspective.
  • Also consider Integrations - e.g. if a product that needs to be integrated can done within the timeframe, or has a pre-built integration available, or if part of the transformation program is also changing these integrations.
• Resources such as the ‘Recommended Implementation Sequence’ artifacts on Now-Create can be very useful in understanding dependencies and sequencing, you can find all of these here: https://nowlearning.servicenow.com/nowcreate?id=nc_asset&asset_id=684682d987056d94af9f213acebb354e&n...

Sequence

• What is the most efficient sequence to follow to meet the timeframe?
  • Use the appropriate recommended implementation sequence for the product mix you’re implementing. (se the Recommended Implementation Sequence artifacts mentioned under Dependencies)
• What works?
• What doesn’t? (and Why?)
• What can be run in parallel, what needs to be sequenced? (consider the available resource mix, or the resource mix you’re suggesting)
• What resources can be shared?
• What resources do we already have in place?

Streams

• How can we best distribute the work among the available resources
• This will be very specific to how you are resourcing the program and the timeframes you need to work to, as well as the overarching operating model that you are setting up for the program.
  • There is a great success insight on the Customer Success site that delves in to this further: https://www.servicenow.com/content/dam/servicenow-assets/public/en-us/doc-type/success/insight/defin...
• Consider:
  • Streams aligned to different workflows (e.g. Technology, Employee, Customer)
  • Streams aligned to product sets (e.g. ITSM, ITOM, HRSD)
  • Streams aligned to a particular outcome – this may be necessary where you have a particular deliverable that crosses multiple other streams – often the case with Portals / Employee Center.
• What are the constraints with regards to the number and structure of streams?
  • PM resource?
  • Technical (SN Developer) resource?
  • Process SME?
  • Testers?

Migration and Transition

• What is the best approach to migrate and transition to ServiceNow?
• Are there any users already live in ServiceNow?
  • If so, what processes and data are they using that we need to keep intact for any transition process.
• Will we be performing a ‘big-bang’ go live, or a staggered go-live process
  • Staggered can give value early,  but can make OCM more difficult, and compromise user experience. (this can be especially true where Service Catalog and migration from existing portals are involved)
  • Big Bang can mean we can get everything across in one go, but can be higher risk.
• What amount of swivel chairing is acceptable?
• At what point do all users need to be off the legacy tool?
• Are there specifics we need to keep in mind where we are moving from a single process in the legacy tool to multiple different processes in ServiceNow e.g. from a single ‘ticket’ to Incident, Request, Security Incident.
• What data needs to come across from the existing tool?
  • Open transactions (incidents, changes, problems, requests)
  • Closed transactions (or can swivel chairing be used for these?)
  • Historical data needed? What time period is required
  • CMDB data? (this would generally not be recommended, but there may be cases where manually created legacy data is required)
  • Foundation data (ideally this comes separately direct from the appropriate source of truth)
• What operational readiness requirements does the customer have?
  • E.g. Knowledge transfer to BAU operations staff
  • Training for new users
  • Communications
  • Volumetric/Load testing and conformance to NFRs
  • Security sign offs.

Other Aspects

There are a couple of other important aspects I haven't gone in to here, but are no less important:

• Governance
  • Governance throughout the digital transformation program at the Strategic, Portfolio and Technical levels will be critical to ensure success. You will also need this ongoing to ensure the platform continues to operate at it's peak in to the future.
  • You can review a great collection of resources on the recommended Governance for ServiceNow on the Customer Success site here: https://www.servicenow.com/success/playbook/governance-process-policies-team.html 
• Testing
  • Your program will need to factor in the timeframes and resources for testing, both at a story level, as well as other levels e.g. Integration, User Acceptance, and potentially others e.g. Stress/Volume.
  • Plan for developing test cases for Automated Test Framework as part of your implementation - this will save you loads of effort when you come to upgrade later to help avoid manually testing any of your customisations.
  • You can find more information about Automated Test Framework here: https://www.servicenow.com/au/products/automated-test-framework.html 

Where to next?

I hope these notes on factors to consider and discussion points to work through help you when you’re planning your next digital transformation.

Make sure any effort covers off People, Process and Technology, use Now-Value to provide a framework, and ensure that Governance  and Organisational Change Management are included throughout your program.

Last but not least, don’t forget to plan for ServiceNow upgrades!

Let me know what transformations you’ve planned recently and what were the factors that made it interesting and that you wish someone had mentioned before you started.