The ServiceNow platform has become a staple in enterprise IT for organisations looking to streamline processes and improve productivity. As a partner of Innovat.Edge, I had the privilege of attending the Gartner Symposium 2024 on the Gold Coast. During the event, it became clear that many organisations are still grappling with significant challenges that hinder the platform's full potential. From struggling with low CMDB adoption to skyrocketing costs, these issues are stifling the value organisations expect from their ServiceNow investments.
Drawing from conversations with various industry professionals, I’ve outlined key concerns and developed a strategic roadmap to address them. This approach focuses on value realisation, streamlining implementations, and ensuring sustained platform health through governance and ongoing assessments. Below, I’ll delve into the common issues raised and offer practical solutions to overcome them, backed by my experiences as a ServiceNow Certified Master Architect and the services provided by GlydePath.
Gartner Symposium Insights: Understanding the ServiceNow Platform Challenges
The ServiceNow platform is widely praised for its flexibility and ability to adapt to various organisational needs. Despite this, many companies face roadblocks during implementation.
The most common challenges I encountered during my discussions at the symposium were:
Difficulty demonstrating tangible value from the platform
Low adoption rates of CMDB (Configuration Management Database)
Escalating costs and decreasing quality in ServiceNow implementations
These challenges are interconnected and point to the need for a structured approach that includes platform architecture reviews, CMDB optimisation, automation assessments, and stronger governance practices.
ServiceNow Platform Value: Identifying the Gaps
One of the primary concerns was a failure to demonstrate the platform’s value beyond IT service management (ITSM). Organisations often implement multiple modules and functionalities, but struggle to correlate these with measurable business outcomes. GlydePath’s ServiceNow Roadmap offers a solution by ensuring that platform initiatives are directly tied to strategic business goals.
Through architecture reviews, licensing audits, and comprehensive health assessments, we can pinpoint inefficiencies and underutilised features to deliver faster and more noticeable results.
Key Steps to Show Immediate Value:
Baseline Platform Review: A thorough architecture review to understand the current state of the platform. This identifies areas of misalignment with best practices and security lapses that could be slowing the system down.
Quick Wins through Automation: An automation assessment can quickly reveal areas where automating manual processes can save time and reduce costs, such as automating HR onboarding or procurement approvals.
Roadmap to Success: A Practical Approach
After identifying quick wins through automation, it’s critical to lay out a ServiceNow roadmap that drives long-term value. Here’s how to structure the journey:
Vision Workshop: Define the overarching vision and strategic goals for your ServiceNow platform. Engage stakeholders early to ensure alignment with business priorities.
Stakeholder Interviews: Interview key stakeholders across different departments to uncover pain points, bottlenecks, and areas that need immediate attention. This provides clarity on where ServiceNow can have the most impact.
Draft Recommendations: Based on findings from the architecture review and stakeholder interviews, create a draft list of recommended actions. This could include improvements to workflows, integrations, and underutilised features.
Prioritisation Workshop: Collaborate with teams to prioritise recommendations based on business impact, resource availability, and timelines. This ensures that the most critical items are addressed first, delivering immediate and tangible value.
Final Roadmap: Develop a finalised roadmap that includes specific milestones, estimated costs, and timelines. This roadmap becomes the guiding document for driving platform enhancements, automation initiatives, and CMDB optimisation.
CMDB Adoption: A Common Stumbling Block
Low adoption rates of CMDB and related features were another prevalent issue discussed at the symposium. Many organisations invest in CMDB but don’t see the expected returns, often due to improper implementation and guidance. Poorly structured data models and lack of proper governance result in a fragmented CMDB that fails to provide a comprehensive, accurate picture of IT assets.
Implementing CMDB successfully requires a structured approach that follows best practices. At GlydePath, we emphasise four essential steps to ensure adoption and sustained value from CMDB:
Set Direction: Begin with a clear vision for the CMDB’s role in the organisation. Define how it will support broader IT operations and business goals. This step includes identifying the top services that need to be represented in the data model.
Build a Team: Assemble a cross-functional team that includes IT, security, and business stakeholders. Taking your team on the journey ensures they understand the value of the CMDB, increasing engagement and long-term adoption.
Design the Data Model: Leverage the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) to design a robust data model. This should be a collaborative process involving key team members to ensure the model fits the organisation's specific needs while remaining scalable and aligned with industry best practices.
Implementation and Ongoing Maintenance: Successful CMDB implementation doesn’t end with the initial setup. Ensuring that the CMDB is maintained through governance, regular updates, and health checks is crucial for its long-term success. Integrating the CMDB with ITSM tools guarantees that it remains accurate and continuously provides value.
By following these steps and integrating governance, organisations can improve CMDB adoption and ensure the CMDB serves as a vital asset in decision-making and operations.
Rising Costs and Reduced Quality: The Implementation Dilemma
At the Gartner Symposium, one recurring theme was the frustration with rising costs and declining quality in ServiceNow implementations. This issue often stems from projects being led by inexperienced consultants, misalignment of goals, and poor project management. When organisations engage with inexperienced vendors, they frequently encounter delays, budget overruns, and implementations that fail to deliver the expected value.
A proven way to mitigate these challenges is by adopting ServiceNow’s Now Value methodology, which focuses on achieving success through four distinct stages:
Envision: Clearly define the strategic outcomes and goals for the ServiceNow implementation. What should success look like? How will the implementation drive value for the organisation? This stage ensures that everyone, from stakeholders to implementers, understands the broader vision.
Create: Build the ServiceNow solution based on best practices, aligning it with the goals defined in the Envision stage. During this phase, it’s essential to engage experienced architects and technical leaders to ensure the platform is built with scalability and efficiency in mind.
Validate: Once the solution is built, it’s critical to validate it against the expected outcomes. This involves rigorous testing, stakeholder feedback, and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) to ensure that the platform meets organisational requirements.
Champion: After validating the solution, champion its success by promoting it within the organisation. Engage stakeholders and users to demonstrate how the platform aligns with the initial goals and continues to drive value. This also involves continuous governance and platform health checks to ensure sustained success.
At GlydePath, we ensure that each ServiceNow implementation follows the Now Value methodology. This structured approach allows organisations to not only reduce implementation costs but also increase the likelihood of project success by ensuring alignment with business objectives at every stage.
Building a Roadmap for Success
To resolve the challenges organisations face with their ServiceNow platform, I recommend a multi-pronged approach:
Start with a Platform Architecture Review: This will establish a baseline and help organisations understand the current state of their ServiceNow platform. It will identify underutilised features and modules that can bring immediate value if leveraged correctly.
Focus on Automation for Quick Wins: Automation is one of the fastest ways to demonstrate value from ServiceNow. GlydePath’s Automation Assessment identifies areas where process automation can significantly reduce manual workloads, saving time and cutting costs.
Develop a Comprehensive Roadmap: The roadmap should outline short-term and long-term objectives, linking them to strategic goals. It should prioritise initiatives that deliver the highest impact while aligning with business outcomes.
Implement Governance and Health Checks: Governance ensures that every enhancement serves a strategic purpose, and ongoing health checks guarantee that the platform stays optimised for performance and security. GlydePath’s Governance Model ensures that enhancements align with business goals, preventing unnecessary implementations.
Invest in CMDB Excellence: A well-implemented and governed CMDB provides immense value by offering real-time visibility into the IT landscape. Ensuring that the CMDB is integrated with ITSM applications and maintained through best practices guarantees that it remains an accurate and valuable resource for decision-making.
As a seasoned ServiceNow specialist, I bring 14 years of experience and over 50 successful ServiceNow engagements to help organisations overcome these challenges. The services outlined above, available through GlydePath, focus on delivering long-term value by improving platform architecture, automating processes, and ensuring sustained platform health.
With the right roadmap in place, organisations can not only unlock the full potential of their ServiceNow investments but also ensure that their IT operations run smoothly and efficiently.
A special thank you to Innovat.Edge for the invitation to the Gartner Symposium. The insights gained from the event have been invaluable in shaping my perspective on ServiceNow challenges and solutions. If you'd like to explore how we can tackle your ServiceNow challenges together, feel free to book a chat with me.
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