Continual Improvement Management overview

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Continual Improvement Management overview

    Continual Improvement Management (CIM) enables organizations to initiate, plan, implement, and monitor improvement initiatives through a centralized framework. It supports service, process, and function improvements by defining improvement initiatives with measurable goals and structured phases containing specific tasks. CIM helps ensure continuous enhancement aligned with organizational objectives.

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    Initial Setup and Roles

    To start using CIM, install the CIM plugin and configure it via guided setup in the ServiceNow platform. Assign appropriate roles such as Improvement Manager, Improvement Coordinator, and Approver groups to users for effective governance of improvement activities.

    The CIM workflow includes:

    • Improvement Requester: Identifies and submits improvement requests.
    • Improvement Manager: Reviews, accepts, prioritizes, assigns improvements, monitors progress, and approves closure.
    • Improvement Coordinator: Manages phases and tasks, collaborates with task owners, and tracks progress for timely completion.

    The Continual Improvement Workbench supports planning and managing improvements with both tile and list views for user convenience.

    Integration with Other Applications

    CIM integrates seamlessly with various ServiceNow applications, enabling improvement initiatives to be created from those applications and vice versa. This integration centralizes management and monitoring of improvements across processes and services.

    Integration is facilitated through the CIMIntegrationAPI extension point, which manages inbound and outbound connections between CIM and other applications. Administrators can configure attributes to control field value copying between CIM and integrated application tasks.

    Domain Separation

    CIM fully supports domain separation without additional configuration. This allows organizations to segment improvement data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical domains. It controls user access and visibility, ensuring data and process isolation where required.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Centralized framework to consistently manage continuous improvement initiatives.
    • Clear role assignments to streamline request submission, implementation, and approval processes.
    • Integration capabilities that extend improvement management across multiple ServiceNow applications.
    • Support for domain separation ensuring secure and segmented data handling in multi-domain environments.

    Continual Improvement Management 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 CIM.

    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 CIM 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 Improvement integration with other applications.

    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.