I have implemented a lot of ServiceNow platforms and applications. Maybe you have. If you have, then this article should resonate with your experience. If you are in the progress of implementation or are looking towards an approaching implementation: save yourself some headaches and money by taking this article to heart.
When implementation workshops become theory workshops
Maybe this is your first time working with ServiceNow, ITIL, ITSM, ITOM, SPM, or any other fancy abbreviations related to a ServiceNow implementation.
Maybe you have worked in the industry for several years and think you know exactly what the different IT processes and applications are. If that is the case, then please stop and take a breath. I have seen many like you, and yes, you are smart, and you probably know 75% of the theory around whatever process is about to be implemented. Do everyone a favor, and do not be headstrong and insistent that you have nothing to learn.
Implementation workshops mainly become unsuccessful due to one thing being packaged differently, though all are surmounting the same thing: the workshop participants do not know what they are talking about.
That may sound rough, especially if you are one of the people who are pretty sure that you know most about the IT processes. But please consider that even in that case, you probably have a preconception of the process that (usually) isn't founded on leading industry practices. More likely, your understanding is based on your organization's process adoption and transformation.
We must ensure that we are all talking the same language before we start posing requirements for a process. We need to understand the industry's best practices and humble ourselves to the possibility that we can learn more about the intricacies and interdependencies of the processes.
The danger of a premature implementation workshop
Oh, the number of times I have heard the phrase 'when can we get our hands dirty?' and 'when will we start doing something?'. The worst implementation lead will tell you - right now, don't worry! What do you want?
This will inevitably lead to requirements built upon an unstable foundation of misconceptions and probably some technical debt.
You then start the race by putting your car into reverse for 100 meters and puncturing your tires on purpose.
On the other hand, no one wants to spend ages going through agonizing PowerPoint decks from an overpaid consultant who wants to explain precisely how incident management works and what the ITIL theory definitions are. You are already behind on those critical changes, and your emails are piling up while you listen to "Incident Management is the firefighting process of IT Service Management."
So, we can't go into requirement mode because we haven't established a healthy foundation for collaboration through common standards and an understanding of leading industry practices.
And, adding salt to the wound, we only achieve a consensus by spending heaps of time on theoretical matters.
(Or is that a misconception?)
(And was the above a very leading question - follow the next cliffhanger/clickbaiting paragraph for more!)
And upon the seventh boring theoretical workshop, he said, "let there be self-paced learning freely available to all of mankind."
ServiceNow wants you to succeed with its products. Many articles from this site try to convey that.
So, please use the resources and assets freely available for customers, partners, ServiceNow employees, and civilians alike.
You can find mountains of on-demand learning that you can utilize as prereads before a workshop. Don't spend your valuable time moaning over ITIL definitions during an implementation workshop - or at least keep it to a minimum.
Instead of having two workshops around theory and then being left with no time for implementation requirements, then how about this for a change?
-
The implementation and business leads agree on the prerequisite knowledge level that the requirement posing audience should possess
-
The pair goes to now learning, Youtube, Community, Docs, or Spotify to find relevant learning.
-
All participants timeboxes a couple of hours to go through the on-demand content
-
You have an honest-to-God workshop focused on implementation.
Some of the many resources
Examples from Spotify
ServiceNow Sites
Youtube
