Information technology service management (ITSM) on the ServiceNow platform provides end-to-end visibility into your business services and IT environment, allowing you to achieve digital transformation through a single system of action. This makes it possible to consolidate fragmented tools and legacy systems, while automating processes.
—ServiceNow IT Service Management Data Sheet
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In this article of our NOWSupport best practices series, we offer some suggestions for successfully implementing and maintaining a simple, industry-standard approach to IT service management in your organization. First, check out the ITSM Overview | Tips for a Successful Implementation video on our NOWsupport YouTube channel:
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Now, here are four tips for implementing and long-term success in maintaining IT service management in your ServiceNow instance:
Become familiar with the ITIL framework
The IT Infrastructure Library, ITIL, is an integrated, process-based best practice methodology for managing IT Services. Its focus is to optimize IT service delivery and support to improve business operations. The ITIL framework consists of five stages: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. In each of these areas, you will build a process to address user requests, maintenance, service restoration, and performance improvement. ServiceNow ITSM applications and processes align with the ITIL methodology, so familiarity with the ITIL framework will help you understand how ITSM workflow and automation work in the ServiceNow platform.
Implement a sound governance model
Governance provides a structure for sound business decisions. It helps key personnel understand business requirements, develop the ServiceNow platform, and run projects in an organized way. Implementing a sound governance model—including a platform support team—allows the ServiceNow platform to scale and mature along with your business needs.
Here are some resources for getting started on building a platform support team:
Use configurations instead of custom mode
Customizations require time and effort to create and maintain, may result in performance degradation, and complicate upgrades—given the level of testing required. Instead, take advantage of the configurations built into the platform. The ITSM Guided Setup is a great place to start and helps you to set up all of your basic ITSM applications, including Incident, Problem, and Change Management. When you're ready, it will also guide you through configuring the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), Knowledge Base, Service Catalog, and other advanced ITSM capabilities.
Upgrade to new releases
Each release includes security and bug fixes, new applications and features, and enhancements to existing functionality. Upgrading ensures platform security and allows you to take advantage of new features. If you aren't using many customizations, adopting new releases should be easy.
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For more information, see:
- IT Service Management (product documentation)
- ITSM guided setup (product documentation)
- ITSM Process Guides (KB article; requires log in to HI)
- Go Live Fast With ServiceNow ITSM (eBook)
- Governance: Technical Best Practices eBook (KB article; requires log in to HI)
- Quick Start—An Overview of ITIL Service Operation (eBook)
- Quick Start—An Overview of ITIL Service Transition (eBook)
- Upgrade and Patching information
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Behind the scenes here at ServiceNow, the Knowledge Management and Multimedia teams work closely with subject matter experts to disseminate critical information to our customers. We've found that certain topics come up frequently, in the form of best practices that can help you keep your ServiceNow instances running smoothly. This series targets those topics so that you and your organization can benefit from our collective expertise. If you have a best practices topic you'd like us to cover in this series, please let us know in the comments below. To access all of the blog posts in this series, see our NOWSupport best practices series list.
