This also happens in virtually every CMS project call I attend. People want to see what others are doing, how other organizations are putting things together, and any new features that are being utilized. While not a bad approach as it usually starts some pretty interesting creative discussions, the challenge is that your company is unique.
Before you head down the path of re-building your self-service portal or launching a new CMS site within ServiceNow, consider these pre-work questions for you and your group to define:
- Who do you think is going to use this site? What are they using now and why do you feel the need to make a change? As a side note, this effort can help you identify potential alpha/beta release testers outside your group.
- What are the key functions you want to be able to serve up through your site?
- Is there content or features that you only want made available to certain groups or roles?
- How do you intend on managing the site once it's live - internal resource(s) or external agency or a hybrid?
(Related article: Build to Scale) - What are the elements you want to be able to report on? Or another way to ask is, what kind of analytics do you need to have?
- Will this site ever reach an international audience with localized content? If so, what is the rollout plan for that?
- Visually, are there any sites you want this new portal to look like within the organization or is this a net new approach that will require some deeper UI and graphic design? If so, who is going to do that work?
- Timeline is always the killer. Are there any hard dates that need to be considered? Is there a plan to roll out the site in phases and if so, have you defined which phase your requirements fall into? As a side note, this is a huge step. Simply having an Excel file with the user story you want and which phase you require that story to live in is probably one of the more productive discussions you can have.
If you came to the table with the majority of those questions answered, you will have a much better experience and ultimately receive what you're hoping for. Finding out some of the answers along the way is very disruptive to the process and sometimes can set things back for months.
Are there any other pre-work questions you think should be defined before heading down the new CMS path? Please comment below. You can also check out some best practice and even custom code for ServiceNow CMS that we're putting together on our new blog. Enjoy!
