TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

About the Authors 5

1 - Establish and communicate your vision 6

2 - Align your stakeholders 9

3 - Build a governance structure 12

4 - Define your rollout strategy 14

5 - Recruit the right commited team 17

6 - Don’t carry over bad processes 19

7 - KISS your project 21

8 - Identify your business architect 23

9 - Involve your technical SME’s 25

10 - Invest in ServiceNow knowledge 27

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 A B O U T T H E AU T H O R S
Pierre Lambercy
Pierre co-founded
Aspediens, the leading
European ServiceNow
expert in 2008. The
company was later
acquired by Fruition
Partners, a CSC Company and he is now
Managing Director, Business Solutions at
Fruition Partners Europe. Pierre has over 20
years of combined experience in IT, ITSM,
Customer Service, Project Management,
Project Delivery and Training. For the past
10 years, Pierre has been focusing on
implementing Service Management
solutions in medium and large international
organizations. Through the multiple projects
he managed, he has gained a solid
understanding of the challenges companies
are facing during their ServiceNow journey
and how they can best address those
topics.
Stephen Mann

Stephen is an independent
IT and IT service
management content
creator, and a frequent
blogger, writer, and
presenter on the challenges
and opportunities for IT service
management professionals. In his career,
he’s held positions in IT research and
analysis (at IT industry analyst firms Ovum
and Forrester), IT service management
consultancy, enterprise IT service desk and
IT service management, IT asset
management, innovation and creativity
facilitation, project management, finance
consultancy, internal audit, and most
recently product marketing for a SaaS IT
service management technology vendor.
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 1

ESTABLISH AND COMMUNICATE THE

VISION
The service transformation vision and key project goals should
be defined in terms of the things that really matter to your
company, not just that ServiceNow is implemented to quality,
time, and cost. Implementation success is of course important but, from a
business perspective, the most important project goals will relate to business-level
outcomes such as:

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 - Improved efficiency and reduced costs

- A better customer experience for

both external customers and
employees
- Improved governance, with the
ability to meet compliance
requirements
“The service transformation
opportunity with ServiceNow
extends across your company,
touching any business function that
provides service.”

- Increased speed of change – to

quickly deliver improvements and
new innovations as needed

- Reduced operational wastage, such as the removal of duplicated efforts,

dropped “batons”, or “reinvention of the wheel”

All realised through service transformation and the use of ServiceNow.

The project’s scope is an important part of the vision too. Many ServiceNow
customers start with a need related to IT and IT service management (ITSM) – they
usually need to manage and deliver IT services better – but the service
transformation opportunity with ServiceNow extends across your company,
touching any business function that provides service.

So ensure that your vision includes all of the transformational opportunities

ServiceNow brings. Whether it be to IT, HR, Facilities, Legal, or to any other
business function that would benefit from a single system of record, workflow and
automation, self-service, custom app creation, and other ServiceNow capabilities.
It’s important to factor these into your vision, and then to planning and design,
whether they are early or later opportunities for reaping the benefits of service
transformation.

In addition to including possible later implementation phases, the vision should

also factor in ongoing improvement and optimisation opportunities. In that
sometimes aiming for perfection at the outset can be counterproductive, with a
better approach being iterative improvements using the Deming Plan-Do-Check-
Act cycle.

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Once project goals, including the benefits, have been agreed they then need to be
communicated to different stakeholders such as: business case decision makers,
business unit/function and process leads, process users (such as service desk
agents), and end users/employees. There’s more information on these different
types of stakeholder in the critical success factor number two.

It’s also important to remember some of the organisational change management

basics here, such as that:

- Different stakeholder groups, and different people with the groups, will
have different communication method preferences

- Stakeholders will want to know “what’s in it for them”, which again will
differ across groups and potentially people

- Communication needs to be received as well as sent – so ensure that

communications use the right language for the audience too

- One-time communications are not enough – so keep selling the proposed

changes and associated benefits throughout the life of the ServiceNow
implementation.


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 2

ALIGN STAKEHOLDERS

With a ServiceNow implementation it can be easy to focus on a

smaller set of stakeholders than is actually required, with the
initial stakeholder management efforts limited to the activities with senior company
personnel such as:

- Gaining top-level support and buy-in, including commitment to service

transformation beyond the life of the ServiceNow project

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 - Setting business stakeholder expectations around what will be delivered
when, and the associated benefits versus the costs

- Getting access to the funds and other resources required to deliver the
project.

However, as outlined in the first critical success factor, there is a wider spectrum of
business stakeholders to align and manage.

In addition to the senior decision makers, these other stakeholder groups also
need to be communicated to, convinced, and included in the project:

- Business unit/function and process leads. While these stakeholders might

not be directly involved in decisions around the overall scope and
direction of the service transformation project, they will be the first ones to
protect the status quo of their departments, teams, and processes if they
haven’t bought into the change.

- Process users. The people that use the processes and technology –
whether in IT, HR, Facilities, or any other business function – need to be
on board with the service transformation project. The failure to
communicate, to include them in operational decisions, or to demonstrate
the “what’s in it for me” will be detrimental to the required operational and
organisational change.

- End users/employees. It’s easy to

forget the importance of end users/
employees, especially if you view “In addition to the senior decision
service transformation from a service makers, other stakeholder groups
provider, rather than a service also need to be communicated to,
consumer, perspective. In some convinced, and included in the
instances, such as with the benefits project”
associated with the introduction of
self-service, the failure to involve and
gain the support of employees can
kill new capabilities before they even go live.

Thus all of these groups need to be considered and then aligned to the proposed
changes, with the common organisational change management mistakes (and the

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resulting resistance to change) avoided. These common mistakes include, but are
not limited to:

- Insufficient effort is made to sell the reasons for, and benefits of,
ServiceNow and service transformation to the various stakeholder groups

- Not using the right language to gain a mutual understanding of the

reasons behind, and the benefits of, the change

- Not planning for resistance from the outset – it will probably happen so
plans need to be in place to deal with lack of commitment and reticence
to change when they start to appear.

The business stakeholders might not always be aligned with each other but they
do need to be aligned with how the service transformation, and introduction of
ServiceNow, will impact them.

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 3

BUILD A GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

The word “governance” can mean different things to different

people and, in the case of a ServiceNow implementation, there
is a governance requirement for both the project and for the
post go-live operations.

In terms of project governance, i.e. the aspects of governance related to project

effectiveness, there are three required governance “pillars” – structure, people,

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and information – which collectively provide a governance framework to support
the project from inception through to post-implementation review. At a high level,
the governance elements include:

- A project board and various stakeholder groups (which will include user
groups). There might also need to be an overarching programme board if
the ServiceNow implementation is part of a wider business transformation
initiative.

- Defined roles and responsibilities (including ownership and accountability)

for project players – from the board members, through the project
manager, to project team members including third-party resources such as
ServiceNow partners brought in to assist with design, technical, and
people change activities.

- Processes and information sources that support people in their project

roles. For instance, the use of a project management methodology such
as PRINCE2 or reporting capabilities that provide snapshots and
projections across the project delivery criteria for quality, time, and cost.


- Metrics that allow the realisation of the promised benefits to be

demonstrated both during and after project completion.

Collectively these governance elements will provide decision-making, delivery, and

progress monitoring mechanisms for the life of the project.

In terms of business as usual governance, there are again a number of things to

consider. There are similar governance requirements to the implementation project
that cover decision making (re policies say), accountabilities, and monitoring but
there is also the need to have a governance body and mechanism to provide
oversight and approvals to future proposed changes to existing operations.

Finally, if service management best practice is being extended outside of IT then

there is an additional level of cross-business decision making and reporting to
consider. One that looks at service management and ServiceNow as a corporate
capability.

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 4

DEFINE YOUR ROLLOUT STRATEGY

It’s certainly not a “one-size-fits-all” project scenario when it

comes to implementing ServiceNow. Every company has
unique business requirements and goals, and differing
corporate structures, and as such the implementation process
needs to ensure that these are factored in.

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Companies will also need to choose between a “big bang” approach – tackling
everything at once – or a “phased” implementation where the solution is delivered
in more manageable chunks, usually prioritised based on business needs and
benefits.

A big bang rollout is typically a go-live or “cutover” scenario where the organisation
switches from their old platform to ServiceNow at a single point in time. Whereas a
phased approach is where the implementation happens in a series of
predetermined steps. This can be achieved in a number of different ways, such as:

- Phased rollout by geography.  This is the most common phased rollout

strategy for organisations with multiple locations. Here ServiceNow is
introduced in one or more company locations at a time. This can also be
referred to as the “pilot adoption” model.

- Phased rollout by module.  Here

ServiceNow applications and
“The rollout strategy does depend
modules are implemented one at a
on your company’s circumstances,
time or in groups. Typically,
ask yourself the right questions to
companies begin with core functions
select one.”
and processes – those necessary for
daily operations – then more modules
and functionality are added in with
each subsequent phase.

- Phased rollout by business unit/function. Using this approach,

implementation is carried out in one or more business units/functions at a
time. For example, companies might begin by implementing ServiceNow
in IT, then move on to HR or Facilities.

- In terms of what’s right for your company, there are various factors to be
considered, such as:

- What level of risk is acceptable? Big bang implementations have an

inherently higher level of risk due to the added complexity of a larger
project scope.

- What budget is available? Phased implementations typically take longer to

complete; which can mean more work for your internal project team and
implementation partner, and thus increased costs.

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 - If a phased approach is adopted, what does this mean for integration
between ServiceNow and legacy systems during the interim period? This
is potentially one of the most problematic areas for phased
implementations. It could involve creating interfaces that wouldn’t be
needed if all modules were introduced at once, as well as creating
bespoke user documentation and procedures for processes operating in
the interim period.

- Does the implementation cover a single or multiple locations/business

units? Having multiple locations or business units doesn’t necessarily
mean that a phased approach is the best choice. For instance, critical
interdependencies between locations/business units might dictate that a
phased approach isn’t viable for your company.

So the rollout strategy really does depend on your company’s circumstances.

Thankfully ServiceNow partners, such as Fruition Partners, are here to advise and
assist you with this and many other implementation activities.

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 5

RECRUIT THE RIGHT COMMITTED

TEAM
ServiceNow implementation is not just about the technology.
Instead it requires suitable people resources – with the right
knowledge, skills, and experience – across people change,
process improvement, and technology introduction. Plus, with
them needing the capacity to be able to play an active, and often proactive, role in
the change project.

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The people resources will ideally come from a number of backgrounds, including:

- Internal technology specialists. To advise on, and to help apply, corporate

IT policies and standards.

- Internal process users. In the case of IT this will be the IT staff who use the
technology and service management processes on a day to day basis.

- Business architects. See critical success factor number eight where this
role is outlined in more detail.

- Third-party specialists. For instance, ServiceNow partners who can help

with activities such as strategy and advisory, organisational change
management, process improvement, technology design (including the
user interface and experience), implementation, and training.

- End users. As mentioned earlier, if you want to view service transformation

from a service consumer, rather than a service provider, perspective then
end users will need to be involved from the project outset. End user
involvement will help to ensure that service experiences are designed and
delivered with the customer or consumer front and centre.

There are a number of potential people pitfalls to avoid here too. Firstly, it’s
important to ensure that all of these people have been sufficiently freed up to
participate in the project. Sadly, if any of these groups are not fully committed, at
best it will cause delays and at worst poor decisions and shortcuts will hamper
project success.

Secondly, staffing the project purely with professional project management

resource (rather than a mix of service management professionals) might speed up
delivery but it could be at the expense of quality, i.e. there’s a lack of subject matter
expertise baked in to the delivered solution.

And thirdly, that the specialist third-party resources are poorly utilised and
managed. For instance, that the project doesn’t ensure that there’s a formal
knowledge transfer mechanism from the third parties to employees. Or that the
consultants are bogged down in minutiae and thus aren’t allowed to focus on the
higher value-add activities of the change project they would brought in to deal
with.

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 6

DON’T CARRY OVER BAD

PROCESSES
There’s an old adage re the introduction of IT automation –
that automating a bad process only gets you to a poor outcome
more quickly. The same is true for service transformation, merely automating
your company’s service management status quo will most likely be suboptimal;
with opportunities to improve operations and services missed as the focus on the
new, enabling technology potentially blinds the company to the real purpose of the
change – better business outcomes.

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Instead take the opportunity to review and simplify existing processes. Not only to
remove inefficiencies and embed even more best practice in operations, but also
to consolidate on the single-best way of doing things. In an IT department this
might be consolidating the technologies, processes, and people from multiple
service desks into a single service desk operation. Taking the best aspects of each
service desk and additional industry best practice, then adding the power of both
service automation and IT automation to create the optimal way of delivering and
supporting IT corporately.

The consolidation can also be extended

across multiple business functions, with
similar if not standard approaches to
“Remove inefficiencies and embed
common service management activities – even more best practice in
such as dealing with requests for help, operations.”
service, information, or change – across
corporate service providers such as HR,
Facilities, and Legal. There can be a single
system of record utilised across all departments, a standard approach to
knowledge management, and similar employee self-service portals, or one unified
self-service portal, to make it easier for employees to access services.

Additionally, the use of service automation and the ability to create custom apps
(for dealing with consumer requests) offers the opportunity to completely rethink
service-based processes using an “outside in” approach. This is looking at
processes or activities from the customer or consumer perspective, rather than the
provider perspective, to ensure that they help rather than hinder the customer. 

For instance, creating a single self-service capability around employee needs
rather than multiple self-service capabilities around service provider capabilities.

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 7

KISS YOUR PROJECT

Albert Einstein is thought to have said that “Everything should

be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”. Your service
transformation project should be treated with concept in
mind, keeping things simple yet smart. After all, service automation in
particular is about allowing people to “work smarter not harder” as it removes
unnecessary manual tasks.

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 So “KISS” your ServiceNow implementation.
Where KISS is an acronym for “Keep it simple,
“Simplicity should be a key design
stupid”, a design principle used by the US
goal, and unnecessary complexity
Navy, and then the rest of the world, from the
should be avoided.”
early 1960s onwards. With the KISS origin
story being that of engineer Kelly Johnson
setting a team of aircraft design engineers the
challenge designing an aircraft that’s repairable by an average mechanic, in the
field under combat conditions, with only a limited set of tools.

The concept behind the KISS principle is that most systems work best when they
are kept simple rather than being overcomplicated. Thus simplicity should be a key
design goal, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided. And while KISS as a
term might not resonate with you immediately, consider the following, that simpler
solutions:

- Are easier and quicker to implement

- Result in fewer implementation issues (and also reduce the required level
of testing)

- Are easier and less costly to manage and maintain

- Are easier to change as business requirements change

- Result in more reliable operations.

Plus, people – in the case of a ServiceNow implementation, most likely employees

– usually want or need things to be simple, i.e. they want them to be easy to learn
and use.

In the ServiceNow scenario, the application of the KISS principle can apply to
individual service management processes or capabilities, such as self-service say.
Or it can apply to the overall approach to the project and how the technology is
envisioned and then ultimately implemented, whether purely for IT or in a wider
enterprise service management scenario.

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IDENTIFY YOUR BUSINESS
ARCHITECT
The terms “business architect”
and “business architecture”
might be new to you and are
thus explained here. If they
aren’t, please jump down two
paragraphs.
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Business architecture is the creation of
“a blueprint of the enterprise that
provides a common understanding of
the organisation and is used to align
strategic objectives and tactical
demands” (Source: Wikipedia). Business
architecture usually depicts a company without any
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 IT architecture and, importantly, a business architecture is not a business function
or business process model. And the goal of a business architecture is to enable a
company to focus its services on its customers.

A business architect is a practitioner of business architecture. They hold a number

of corporate responsibilities such as the design of capability models and related
architectural solutions for business tasks. A business architect will build value
chains, an end-to-end collection of activities that creates a positive result for a
customer. They will also get involved in
business transformation activities, co-
“Your ServiceNow implementation developing business transformation plans
will need someone who will see and developing architectural governance and
beyond process and technological controls. Importantly, business architects
enablement.” develop a blueprint of the enterprise to give
others a better, and common, understanding
of the company.

Please note, however, that there are still conflicting opinions as to the differences
between business architects, enterprise architects, information architects, and
process architects. Plus, your company might not have a business architect role, so
to assist on your ServiceNow project you will need to identify someone (probably a
business analyst) who has:

- A solid understanding of business principles and concepts

- The ability to think about the business in a way that’s abstracted from how
the business uses processes and technology

- The ability to “see the bigger picture”

- The ability to act as an agent for change when working with projects and
programmes.

Ultimately, your ServiceNow implementation will need someone who will see
beyond process and technological enablement to ensure consistency of, alignment
with, and the focus on business needs. And as mentioned in critical success factor
number five – they need to be fully committed to the project.

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INVOLVE YOUR TECHNICAL SMES
FROM DAY ONE
This has already been alluded to
in critical success factor number
five – the need to recruit the
right committed team – but it’s
worth spending more time on the
early involvement of technical
subject matter experts (SMEs).
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For a ServiceNow implementation
the term “technical SME” can have a
number of interpretations and each
need to be considered:

-ServiceNow SMEs. Experts in ServiceNow –
from the technology itself, the capabilities (across
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 the broad spectrum of ServiceNow applications and modules), to how to
implement ServiceNow successfully, including integrations with other IT
and business systems such as Active Directory, monitoring and discovery
tools, and ERPs.

- Corporate infrastructure SMEs. The flipside of, and partner in crime to, the
ServiceNow SMEs. They will know how the corporate infrastructure stacks
up and how best to work ServiceNow into the mix, again including
ensuring the ease and success of integrations.

- IT or other business function SMEs. While not necessarily technical in the

sense of technology, these people are technical SMEs from a business
operations perspective. Whether an incident management or governance
SME from the IT department, or an employee management SME from HR,
these SMEs rise above the technology to ensure that the desired (or
required) business outcomes will be, and are, met by the ServiceNow
project.

An SME will differ from a business analyst (or architect) in a number of ways,
including that they have:

- A CV filled with experience in roles related to the domain for which they
are an expert.

- “Been there, done it, and bought the t-shirt”, i.e. they have actually done
the work rather than managing or documenting others doing it. They know
what the “domain” involves – from the opportunities through to the
challenges and common mistakes. Plus, they know how to be successful
in that domain.

- Knowledge of industry best practices – not just on paper but in action.

- A good understanding of different stakeholder needs for their particular

domain. From ensuring that new capabilities meet end user needs through
to ensuring compliance with internal and external governance
requirements.

If done right, the involvement of SMEs from the project outset will ultimately
improve the quality of the delivered solution, speed up project delivery, and lower
project costs. It’s the project management success trifecta.

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 10

INVEST IN SERVICENOW
KNOWLEDGE
As with staffing any project, or the introduction of any new
work activity, you have a choice to make with resourcing. You
can:


- Go it alone with existing employees. Developing the required knowledge

and capabilities internally for both the initial change and then ongoing
operations


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 - Permanently hire new people. To provide the resources required to
engender change while hoping that they will also be suitable for business
as usual roles

- Hire experienced third parties as needed. To provide the relevant skills,

knowledge, and experience for different project and business as usual
needs.

Of course these three options aren’t mutually exclusive and the reality is that you
will probably do all three. With a common scenario being that the third-party
resource will provide knowledge transfer and training to existing employees as part
of the project. Then new hires complement existing staff as needed, usually where
highly-specialised skills are required.

The important thing to remember with a ServiceNow implementation is that you are
doing it for a very specific reason – to improve the operational status quo and, in
doing so, to realise significant business benefits (both soft and hard benefits).
Benefits that will be realised sooner if project outcomes are delivered more quickly
– it’s the notion of “time to value”, i.e. how quickly a project can start to deliver a
return on its investment.

Optimising a project’s time to value requires early access to appropriate skills,

knowledge, and experience; and a ServiceNow project is no different. Projects
progress more quickly when staffed with experienced people – they know what to
do and no time is lost in bringing inexperienced people “up to speed” with what
they need to know and do. It can also be difficult to train internal people up in
some specialisms, plus some required capabilities will always be transitional in that
they will only be needed infrequently after the life of the ServiceNow
implementation project.

So think carefully about your ServiceNow project’s resourcing requirements in

terms of it being another part of the overall investment. Will using inexperienced
internal resources ultimately cost the business more than it saves (due to the delay
in realising project benefits and the potential for a suboptimal solution)? Will using
experienced third parties provide far greater value than they cost? And is training
internal resources on infrequently-used skills a wise investment of project time and
money?

It’s an important balance to get right.

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We are a passionate and dedicated partner for your Service Transformation journey.
Fruition Partners has the team, services and technologies required to transform all your
business service disciplines into highly proficient service providers.

www.fruitionpartners.com
info@fruitionpartners.com
or find Fruition Partners’ nearest office at fruitionpartners.eu/where

Copyright © 2016 Fruition Partners, a CSC company

All Rights Reserved. ServiceNow, ServiceNow product names and the ServiceNow logo are trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc.
All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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