4 key questions to ask before your ServiceNow project…

4 key questions to ask before your ServiceNow project starts

4 key questions to ask before you start your ServiceNow project. A successful ServiceNow transformation starts long before the build commences and training is conducted.

Preparation and planning are key.

What are the 4 key questions to ask before you start with a significant change that can impact your business and the way people work

1. What typically causes changes to fail in our organisation?

Think about what your implementation history has been like previously – have you conducted similar rollouts?

What are the “correct” answers? 😊 Sometimes the answer is to simply not repeat the mistakes of the past – learn from them. The answers may lie in:

• Planning better.
• Identifying the right stakeholders.
• Collaborating with the right stakeholders at the right times.
• Investing in OCM maturity by embedding OCM roles and responsibilities content into leadership and management programs.
• Placing a fulltime OCM lead on the Project and establishing a complete OCM team within the PMO including:
  • Training lead
  • Communications lead
  • Change lead

A good place to start to answer this question is to do a formal assessment and analysis of previous, similar rollouts. Need a tool for this? Ask us.

The second question follows on from the first. It focuses on the current organisational climate – what’s going on currently that may impact the success of this implementation.

2. What other projects, resources and organisational changes are there that will compete with this ServiceNow implementation?

Doing a “stress test” will provide you and others in the organisation a good understanding of the context within which your ServiceNow implementation will operate. It’s a good practice to look back into the past and filter through the three lenses of People, Process and Platform.

The third question revolves around understanding who is going to be impacted by the implementation.

3. Are we considering Organisational Readiness in the context of the company’s ServiceNow roadmap…do we even have a roadmap?

Does the roadmap include specific personas (view of the roadmap based on who will be impacted by what, by how much and when?)

The answer here revolves around the three key OCM pillars: People, Process and Platform. Different people will be impacted in a number of different ways: the work they do may change, the business processes may change and certainly, the platform is changing. How do we communicate to, then train each of these people in ways that are relevant to them?

4. How do we break the habits formed over many years of working with the previous systems and processes?

The fourth question points to encouraging the new ways of working while ‘switching off’ the old ways. How do we break the habits formed over many years of working with the previous systems and processes?

In essence, we’re dealing with people needing to change their work habits and good sense would suggest we somehow reward working in the new ways and discourage working in the old ways. There are several things we can do to achieve this (once again keeping the People, Process, Platform pillars in mind):

1. Turn off or eliminate completely the old ways of working:
   1. Decommission the old software
   2. Eliminate the ability for workarounds
   3. Harder, longer more difficult to do
2. Make the new ways a positive experience:
   1. Easier, simpler, quicker platform
   2. More efficient processes
   3. More productive people

And do you know what? Even if people see this ServiceNow implementation as a wonderful thing there will still be a resistance of some sort. We’re human – it’s inevitable. There may be doubts over clarity or timing or some such, but there will be resistance. This resistance should be encouraged! Ask for it, raise it, encourage it and do something with that valuable information.

Doing a Readiness Assessment early on allows a formal way for potential sources of resistance to be uncovered from a range of different perspectives: Managers, Change Agents, End Users, Fulfillers and so on.

Critical to answering this question is to ask another question: how DO we reward, recognise and encourage the new ServiceNow ways of working?

Choosing a capable ServiceNow partner like Enable Professional Services ensures project success, in all ServiceNow project implementations we offer a series of Organisational Change Management tools to help your management and employees transition smoothly, painlessly and with a positive change to workflows to help enable your work.

Contact Enable today for your own ServiceNow implementation.

Written by –
Mark Galgsdies
Organisational Change Manager
Tribe – OCM