Continual Improvement Management overview

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Continual Improvement Management overview

    Continual Improvement Management (CIM) in ServiceNow offers a centralized framework to plan, implement, and monitor improvement initiatives across your organization. It supports service, process, and function improvements by structuring initiatives with measurable goals, phases, and specific tasks. CIM streamlines how you initiate and manage improvements, ensuring consistent progress tracking and governance.

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    Initial Setup and Configuration

    To start using CIM, install the CIM plugin and use the guided setup to configure the application. After activation, assign appropriate user roles such as Improvement Manager, Improvement Coordinator, and Approver groups to manage responsibilities effectively.

    Role-Based Workflow

    • Improvement Requester: Identifies and submits improvement requests.
    • Improvement Manager: Reviews, prioritizes, assigns initiatives to coordinators, monitors progress via the Continual Improvement Workbench, and approves closure of improvements.
    • Improvement Coordinator: Works on creating phases and tasks, collaborates with task owners, and tracks timely completion of improvements.

    Integration with ServiceNow Applications

    CIM integrates seamlessly with other ServiceNow applications, allowing you to create and link improvement initiatives across various processes and services. This integration provides a unified approach to managing improvements and their impacts throughout the enterprise.

    Domain Separation

    CIM supports domain separation without additional setup, enabling organizations to isolate data, processes, and administrative tasks by logical domains. This ensures secure and controlled access to improvement activities based on user permissions and domain boundaries.

    Continual Improvement Workbench

    The Continual Improvement Workbench offers a consolidated, flexible interface for planning, approving, monitoring, and reviewing improvements. It supports multiple views (tile and list) to help managers and coordinators efficiently oversee ongoing initiatives.

    Continual Improvement Management (CIM) enables you to initiate improvement opportunities within your organization by providing a centralized framework for planning, implementing, and monitoring improvement initiatives.

    The following video gives you an overview of Continual Improvement Management application.

    Use Continual Improvement Management to implement service, process, and function improvements. An improvement initiative contains goals to measure success, and phases that contain tasks with specific actions to complete the improvement.

    Continual Improvement Management Workflow

    Initial CIM setup

    Install the CIM plugin. For more information, see Install Continual Improvement Management.

    To use guided setup to configure CIM, navigate to Continual Improvement > Administration > Guided Setup and select Configure in the Request CIM section.

    Once CIM is activated, assign user roles and groups.
    • Improvement Manager
    • Improvement Coordinator
    • Approver group membership (CIM Approvers, default is empty)

    For more information, see Assign a role to a user.

    Use the Continual Improvement Workbench to plan and manage improvements. Both tile and list views are supported.

    Workflow of CIM roles

    The workflow of improvements from an improvement request to final approval Continual Improvement Management involves various responsibilities.

    1. An Improvement Requester, such as a help desk manager, process owner, or ITIL user, recognizes the need for an improvement with the organization and submits an improvement request.
    2. The Improvement Manager reviews the improvement, accepts it, and assigns it to an Improvement Coordinator for implementation. The Improvement Manager also runs prioritization meetings with Improvement Coordinators and uses the Continual Improvement workbench to monitor, manage, and plan overall progress of improvements. When all tasks are complete, the Improvement Manager reviews improvements for closure.
    3. After the improvement request is assigned, the Improvement Coordinator along with the Improvement manager creates phases and tasks to complete the improvement. The Improvement Coordinator also meets with task owners to track progress and timely completion.

    For more information about CIM roles, see Continual Improvement Management roles.

    Integration with other applications

    CIM is integrated with other ServiceNow® applications to enable you to create improvements across various processes and services within the company. These integrations provide you a centralized framework to implement, manage, and monitor the progress and impact of improvements. You can create improvement initiatives from integrated applications and conversely, create records for integrated applications from improvement initiatives.

    For more information about the applications integrated with CIM, see Applications integrated with Continual Improvement Management.

    Domain separation

    Domain separation capability is supported in Continual Improvement Management with no setup or configuration required.

    You can create improvements separately in a specific domain, or in the global domain.