Kelly's SN implementation Blog Post #12

[kellykaufmann]

Kelly's SN implementation Blog Post #12

Phase 1 Updates:

We're completing the harder ServiceCatalog UAT. I'm doing deep UAT in my spare time, deeper / more logical than what others are doing. We realized we had a huge miss in testing - testing from the end user perspective. We were so focused on testing the workflow, testing approval emails, etc, that we missed taking a look at the end user Service Catalog experience. We're out of hours, everyone is out of time for testing, so this is going to have to sit for a bit. At least we have a while before we roll this out to the end users as we wait for our new Centralized Service Desk!

General:

I met with some members of our development team and documented all the questions they had, and this helped form our requirements discussion points. While meeting with them, they expressed concern with being able to keep track of all items tagged to their team members across SN modules. They envisioned having to dig in 7 different modules for 7 different types of work. I showed them how you can go to Service Desk > My Work and see the Demands, Project Tasks, Incidents, etc. assigned to you. I showed them how to create a Visual Task Board from this to see all the work assigned to a person, sorted by type or state. All is good with this now, and they are really excited about Visual Task Boards.

In fact, I found that I was being pulled aside multiple times a day to show people how to navigate ServiceNow & how to use Visual Task Boards (VTB's). So I created a ServiceNow Navigation how-to and scheduled 5 in-person navigation instructional sessions (1-2 per week) and asked the directors to inform their teams of these and let me know who wants to attend which. I held the first hour-long session, and it seemed very helpful. I ended up rushing through the Visual Task Board part, which really could use an entire hour demo itself.

Phase 2 (Project & SDLC):

I am taking the lead (plan requirement sessions, run requirement meetings, capture requirements, create test plans, create documentation, etc.) on Project, and our Scrum Master is taking the lead on SDLC for Phase 2. Since I have already implemented Project before and am very familiar with the functionality, our plan is for the Scrum Master & I to gather the requirements, and simply hand these requirements to our implementation consultants. The hours with our consultants that we would normally spend on requirement gathering will be spent on shaking out our requirements and guiding us on functionality we haven't used before (I last used Project in Calgary to Dublin versions - we are in Eureka).

Here are the requirements we planned on going through for the 3 PPM meetings:

• 2 hours for overall flow across the modules
  • Agenda:
    • Demo & walkthrough & discussion of what would be captured in Project vs. SDLC (stories & Epics), bouncing between the modules as needed. Confirm approach.
    • Discuss scenarios of who will convert the Demand to Projects/Stories.
    • Can we create multiple Projects, Stories, etc. from 1 Demand?
    • Discuss tagging resources in Demand/Project/SDLC until we start using Resource Mgmt.
    • Describe Waterscrum approach. Discuss need for Project subphases, subphase names.
    • Discuss using cost tasks to get costs across I.T. areas for Demands.
  • Reference material:
    • Draft Demand process
    • Converting Incidents, Demands, etc. to Projects, Stories etc.
    • ServiceNow story illustration
• 1.5 hours for Project requirements
  • Review how will be using Project module in ServiceNow.
  • Determine email notification needs.
  • Base functionality available to enable: Requirements, Issues, Risks, Decisions, Tasks, etc. What ties to what?
  • What fields to be on the form, what should carry over from Demand, etc.
  • Discuss how to capture detailed test plan & results within Project in SN, tracing back to Design. Must we use SDLC stories?
  • Discuss Schwarz need for workflow for 'gates' at end of Requirements, Design.
  • Determine if want/need to change our Task states.
• 2 hours for SDLC requirements
  • Demo on use of SDLC module.
  • Process discussion: How can our development team always have a pool of filler stories to work on? Confirm when an enhancement would get created. Discuss how can filter for when Requirement task is finished across 'filler' efforts.
  • System & process discussion: How to bounce between programming & testing when we make programming changes? Change both programming task details + testing task details?
  • System or process: As a tester, would system determine who to assign a defect to or would the tester need to know this & choose their name?
  • System: Recommendations for best place to store dialogue — in task, in story, etc.?
  • Where to put detailed design notes? If in task, is piecemeal; if in story but multiple people working on, people will bump into eachother & will be hard to track what conversation is for what piece / will be hopping around.
  • Process discussion: Marking next task as ready to work on — 'pass the baton' approach vs 'ringleader' approach. Steve — recommendations?
  • When converting Demand to an Enhancement, what content needs to be carried over & therefore needs to appear on the Enhancement vs can leave linked to the Demand?
  • Determine email notification needs .
  • Determine if want/need to change our Task states.
  • Additional questions in this 'draft demand process'

The night before our Friday PPM requirements sessions, our Scrum Master got nervous about how we would categorize 'Products'. We were both completely missing each other in what we thought would be a Product at our company. I looked through all my Agile books, looked online, and it seemed everyone talks about "Product backlogs" but nobody talks about defining Products!! I touched base with our AOS consultants so they had a 'heads up'. We agreed that there was no time for a discussion prior to the requirements sessions were to begin - we would either have to discuss this briefly during a break, or re-purpose the SDLC session to figure out hierarchy.

Had the 3 PPM requirements sessions. We got through about half of the 'overall' requirements, most of the Project requirements, and we ended up repurposing the SDLC discussion to focus on hierarchy. For the PPM discussion, we reduced the group size to about half, and grabbed 3 Demands and talked through what would be the Product, the Enhancement, a Story, and a Task. After going through these Demands and mapping everything out, the room was on the same page of what will be what.

We have not yet identified what to do with smaller efforts - put in PRJ or SDLC as an enhancement or as a story and where the tasks will live. Also still haven't defined what goes in Project.

We also clarified that for an incident, if development needs to occur, can bounce over to the module where will manage development or if it will just be 2 tasks (develop & test), can just put the tasks in Incident.