When looking to highlight some of the breakout sessions at Knowledge14 one quickly realizes that it's not an easy job to do.
How does one select circa 30 breakout sessions from 200 when over 90% of the 200 are customers talking about their successes? And this is over and above the keynote and partner sessions that aim to help customers and potentially-soon-to-be-customers improve their service delivery and service experience.
Also, you might have noticed that I wrote "service delivery" rather than "IT service delivery" just then. It was very deliberate, to reflect the growing interest in extending the now-mature IT service model beyond IT to assist other corporate service providers such as HR, facilities, and legal in delivering their services.
Assessing the Knowledge14 breakout session landscape
As I've previously blogged, Knowledge14 offers a broad mix of topics with some obvious groupings around the areas that have either caused customers most issues or offered most scope for benefit (or perhaps both):
"As you would expect, there are a number of presentations related to the ITSM "foundation" of incident, problem, and change management. Demand management is an interesting addition, with three sessions, but what is really interesting is the more than ten presentations on configuration management and CMDBs and the ties with change, GRC (governance, risk, and compliance), service improvement, and other areas.
As is the number of IT asset management (ITAM) sessions. Along with IT cost management and eight "risk and compliance" sessions it's an indication of the increased scrutiny that the corporate IT organization is finding itself under. The dual pressure of needing to reduce IT costs AND improve service.
Implementation success is a curious one. While not a trend per se, the fact that customers have successfully rolled out new technology, processes, and possibly even people-change in relatively short timeframes has warranted 14 presentations and three panels (each with three customers). Reading between the lines though, there are definite call-outs to ROI and improving IT service delivery as well as transforming IT in these implementation sessions.
Consumerization has definitely bitten hard too. There are 17 self-service-related sessions. And it's self-service driven by customer demand rather than IT supply, in that it's self-service that goes beyond IT. ServiceNow calls it managing service relationships, others may call it enterprise service management or similar. And it's not just about having an Amazon.com-like storefront, service catalog and shopping basket, it's about improving the service experience and service delivery for the end user or customer.
And continuing this beyond IT theme, there are 26 sessions on the creation of custom apps and four more on improving HR operations using ServiceNow HR Service Automation. Again showing the desire to take the corporate IT organization's service automation technology, best practice processes, and years of service management and service delivery experience to benefit other business functions. Allowing for consistency, economies of scale, improved service delivery performance, and improved service experience."
So how will you consume Knowledge14?
You can deep-dive into one or two areas or try to take a more balanced approach across the spectrum of content. But so much will depend on what you want to get out of the event. So what do you need to achieve once back at the ranch?
If it's improving IT asset management, say, then there's:
Tuesday:
- Bridging the Gap Between Procurement and Asset Management : 9:50 AM (Moscone W 3001)
- The ITAM Journey — How to Navigate Your Path to ITAM Success : 1:20 PM (Moscone W 3001)
- A Process and Data-driven Best Practice Approach to Asset Management : 3:40 PM (Moscone W 3018)
- IT Asset Management Best Practices : 4:50 PM (Moscone W 3009)
Wednesday:
- Eliminating Blind Spots with Asset Management : 2:50 PM (Moscone W 3024)
- Using Mobile Scanners to Improve IT Asset Data Accuracy : 4:00 PM (Moscone W 3010)
Thursday:
- Top 5 Tips to Solve Your Software Asset Management Challenge : 10:10 AM (Moscone W 3016)
- Innovative BYOD and Rent-To-Own Policy : 1:50 PM (Moscone W 3014)
There are also ServiceNow labs on ITAM and software asset management. But with both breakout sessions and labs please check your personal agenda tool to ensure that these sessions are still in the rooms I state.
Or if it's self-service you wish to initiate, or improve upon, then you have the choice of:
Tuesday:
- Managing Services with Service Catalog & CMDB : 9:50 AM (Moscone W 3014)
- Service to the Citizen, Revolutionized : 11:00 AM (Moscone W 3014)
- Empowering Customers Through Self-Service Portals : 1:20 PM (Moscone W 3018)
- Defining and Delivering End-to-End Business Services : 3:40 PM (Moscone W 3022)
Wednesday
- Foundations of an Enterprise Self-Service Portal : 11:20 AM (Moscone W 3012)
- Maximizing the User Experience with a Self-Service Portal : 11:20 AM (Moscone W 3022)
- Techniques for Faster Request Fulfillment : 11:20 AM (Moscone W 3010)
- i.Serve - Volkswagen International Service Portal : 2:50 PM (Moscone W 3009)
- Designing a Self-service Portal for Love and Money : 4:00 PM (Moscone W 3022)
- CMS: Portal to Service Management : 5:10 PM (Moscone W 3022)
Thursday
- Content Management to cure your Service Management Ills : 10:10 AM (Moscone W 3010)
- Designing an Automated Enterprise Service Portal : 11:20 AM (Moscone W 3022)
- On-Boarding Services — Building Value and Customer Confidence : 11:20 AM (Moscone W 3009)
- Supporting a CMS Portal in a Multi-Tenant Environment : 12:40 PM (Moscone W 3010)
- Automating and Integrating IT Procurement : 1:50 PM (Moscone W 3016)
- Pushing Self-Service to Full-Throttle : 1:50 PM (Moscone W 3010)
Again there are multiple self-service-related ServiceNow labs to explore.
But the choice is yours
Of course if you are looking for inspiration, rather than specific help, at Knowledge14 then taking a broader approach might be best. The main thing is to get whatever you need to get — Knowledge14 is all about you and your organization so make sure you optimize the investment you made to get there.
Here are a few rich and varied sessions to get you thinking:
Tuesday
- PANEL: Leveraging the Hacker Culture for Innovation : 11:00AM
- From ITSM Consolidation to Enterprise Service Excellence : 1:20PM
- The Perfect Storm: Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery : 3:40PM
- Converting a Budget Deficit Into an Innovation Surplus : 4:50PM
Wednesday
- Communications Management: The "Media" Role Within ITSM : 1:40PM
- Service-Oriented and Innovative…The New NOW IT : 2:50PM
- Principles of Scalable Architecture : 4:00PM
- Multi-Site IT at Einstein Noah Restaurant Group : 5:10PM
Thursday
- Custom Apps Beyond IT at Bupa Australia : 10:10AM
- Spreading Knowledge Within a University Culture : 12:40PM
- Successful Two-Way Integrations with ServiceNow : 1:50PM
For a full agenda please look at the Knowledge14 Agenda Builder. And it's not too late to attend too: https://knowledge.servicenow.com/ .
See you at Knowledge14!
