Hi, I'm the guy that connects crazy concepts to make hard things simple(r). You may remember an article awhile back about high level ITSM processes - Woman, Goose, Parking Lot, or a couple I wrote about a https://www.servicenow.com/community/now-platform-articles/servicenow-versions-release/ta-p/2312014, or, most recently, about the CMDB, and Shopkins, Hotwheels, and Rainbow Unicorns. It occured to me finally that not everyone is a fan of any of these things, so I figured it was time to connect something most people do at some point in their life: put on pants.
It's simple, really! And once you see it, you'll see it everywhere! You see, you may not remember it, but when you were a child, all was chaos. Everything was New. And everything was the first time.
Take getting dressed. Soo confusing. All these different things, with different shaped holes. But over time, though you probably didn't realize it, you learned PROCESS. We began by generalizing. Pretty much no matter the color or material - the long things with the two holes were pants. The things with one hole each are shoes. Once we were able to generalize a bit, then we could order them. Pants go on before shoes (sometimes I still forget this…).
This really is how ITIL came to be. We had this "technology chaos". And every time seemed like the first time. But over time were were able to generalize: All this "Argh there's a fire!" stuff we can just call incidents… All this stuff that seems to lie under all the "fires" we can call problems… And now that we've generalized let's build some repeatable ways to approach them...
For a better look into the individual ITIL processes, start here...
So really - all of the processes in ITSM are just a way to generalize some things that were really once as chaotic to the business as clothes were to the average 2 year old…
And it's really a short step to see how a platform that could support these processes, could support other business processes, like HR, Finance, Project Management, etc…
But what about automation? I used to be horribly intimidated by this term. I used to think it meant I'd be writing and compiling code and building robots…
But let's go back to getting dressed. Are there any ways we automate that? Absolutely! Ever see shoes with Velcro instead of Shoelaces? Automation! Ever stack clothes out for kids (or yourself) in the order you will put them on? Automation!
So what are examples of Automation on the platform? Ever think: boy it would be great if this field was filled out… (wait for it…) "automatically"? The thing is, you don't need
[{(//!code)}]; to do this… Just simple tools accessible throughout the platform…
(Really, the UI Policy allows you to change things without a lick of code…)
Business Rules - A quick Video of Best Practices
(and honestly, though Business rules can sound intimidating, again, easy to do with NO CODE!)
Though of course if you want to dig deeper into Automation, and you are looking to get a bit more technical, you absolutely can…
A deeper dive into automation through Workflows
But for now, the simple stuff is just that: If you found this a useful way to look at things, then maybe when I get another moment I'll take this a step further and talk about
- When you might want to "Processize" something
- When you might want to "Automate" something
- AND… When you might NOT want to do this…
