Hopefully a lot of your data is already loaded into ServiceNow (CMDB, PPM, Assets, Incidents, etc..) and you will be able to quickly mature to a consumption based model.
However, there are a lot of sands traps that can bog down a service costing project and one of those is the team. IT folks overwhelmingly want to be Heroes. The nature of our field means that we are constantly learning and growing- so taking on new things is an exciting prospect. However, there are many ways you can step wrong and end up with services that do not align with business need or provide insight to business value. You will need the following kinds of skills on your team:
•Costing Expert: If you do not have costing experts on staff, engage one short term to assist in the project- and make sure that you include training and knowledge transfer to your internal staff, unless you want to rely on third party experts forever. How you build cost allocations in your model has implications beyond the calculation of dollars. Make sure you are aligned with leading practices so your internal customers end up with actionable levers for costs.
•Data Geek: You need at least one person on your team who loves to play with data and can manipulate it in their head. if you have a team member for whom pivot tables are as natural as breathing, this is the person you want to leverage.
•Technical/Scripting skills: While the FM module has a workbench that is very "click and drag" friendly, you will eventually need to do at least some small amount of scripting. if your operational data is not already in SN, you will have to create custom table and write glide scripts that can calculate allocation metrics. . Even if you pay your third party vendor to implement the solution, you want someone on your team who can understand and maintain your model(s).
• Report Designer: The best models in the world are useless without the right actionable dashboards and reports that solve your use cases. The out of the box reports in the module are maturing rapidly, but there will be custom reports you want to design- use your corporate standards- do you have a third party reporting tool integrated with ServiceNow already? have your purchased the new Performance Analytics module, or are you strictly "Old School". If you are in the Finance group, engage with your SN system owners to find out what UI standards they have already put in place.
• A Communication Translator: This is not a project that you do in isolation in a small room with 2 people and then release as a surprise. Depending on the breadth and depth of the services you want to model costs for, you will need someone who can talk the language of internal IT as well as the language of Finance and the language of the Business
. •System Expert(s): There are too many failures that happen because after the vendor engagement is over, no one really understands how the system works and how to make changes.Make sure your SN admin/support team gets good documentation on what you implemented and why.
•Project Manager: This is not a project you want to put your newbie project managers on, there will be a lot of moving parts, a lot of ego and personality issues to manage and the success of this project can have a large impact on how folks continue to trust your team on financial matters.
Want to know more about the FM module? Be sure to check out one of our Ask the Experts sessions this summer:
June 7- Financial Management 101
June 21- AppTCO with FM models
July 14- Using Multiple models in Geneva to create Variance reporting.
Considering an FM implementation but not sure how to get started? Reach out for a consultation
