HAM - Implementation

[Mattias Viberg]

Hi folks,

Discussing with a customer to implement HAM and i've been trying to find some best practice of 'where do we start'.

Customer is very immature and basically managing their assets manually, excel spreadsheets at best case.

Related to the maturity of the customer, what approach do you recommend starting with HAM.

The scope in first place is datacenter assets, FW, servers - not PC's.

They do have basics of CMDB and automation via Discovery in place (again, basics).

Thanks for advice,

[Piyush-Patel]

Hi Mattias,

The best place to start is with the Customer Success Center.  It covers leading practice guidance and HAM implementation.

https://www.servicenow.com/success.html > Leading Practices > Checklist > HAM

https://www.servicenow.com/content/dam/servicenow-assets/public/en-us/doc-type/success/success-map/hardware-asset-management.

[Churchie]

@Mattias 

One thing that may help pave a roadmap for you is to hold a discussion with key stakeholders within general hardware spaces. For example Server, Network, Storage, Data Center. Work with the hardware 'Owners' and identify their SME's or POC's to create delivery streams based on the specific outcomes they would like to solve for. These can be your target states or deliverables.

If they can describe their current state and processes are, help flush out what their ideal state and processes would be. It sounds like a good starting point may be to automate (with the help of discovery) their current inventory management.
Be sure to discuss iterative steps with them and have deliverables along the way that are measurable. They need to see the steps being taken and how they move them towards their desired state. Don't try to achieve it all with one big initiative, but rather in increments.

One thing to look for is teams that are eager to jump in with both feet to improve their process. Sometimes you'll see one hardware space be more eager to 'get started' over another. This may help prioritize the roadmap and influence other areas to come on board when others report on their successes.

Good luck,

Darren