Put Go-Live Challenges to Bed with a Program-Development Mindset

(Part 3 of 4 of Creating Your Advisory Services Digital Transformation Roadmap)

You already know that managing your Advisory Services roadmap is not for the faint of heart. But with our Program Development capabilities for ServiceNow Advisory Services Digital Transformation, we help you leverage the ServiceNow platform’s full potential and execute the right digital transformation strategy.

With your ServiceNow digital transformation roadmap capabilities in hand, you and your organization will establish best-in-class services that boost customer loyalty. One key benefit of establishing the Program Development is being able to manage expectations for executive stakeholders and end-user/customers. With clear expectations and communication, you get deeper trust in your digital transformation platform and its services—plus the confidence that your ServiceNow team will address customers’ needs in a timely fashion to increase overall adoption and opportunity for ROI.

But What Happens When Things Don’t Go as Planned?

Many small- to mid-size companies and organizations may finish a go-live project but, unfortunately, fail to build a supporting program. Result? Losing both your trajectory/focus and momentum towards outstanding goals. This happens when project expectations aren’t met from a lack of:

• Corporate governance
• Practical experience in the program
• Process management

One of the most important aspects of losing confidence from unmet project expectations is that a growing distrust festers with stakeholders for the entire system—and as we all know, when trust is broken, it’s a heckuva battle to win it back.

Managing Stakeholder Expectations

At Milestone, one of our key aims is to establish a Program Development scenario where you manage sensible expectations for your executive stakeholders and customers to:

• Set clear expectations and communication that result in deeper trust in the platform and its services
• Feel confident that the ServiceNow team will address your needs in a timely fashion
• Experience an increase in the overall adoption and opportunity for higher ROI for your ServiceNow system

Addressing Unexpected Challenges That May Show Up

Although I don’t hold fast to a specific order in which Common Assessment Activities need to be conducted, if you’ve already started with Technical Review and then go to Process Management, Program Development Capabilities are the next logical step because they address any unforeseen challenges that may arise in your digital transformation.

With Milestone’s Program Development, we address:

1. Out-of-date ServiceNow implementations

If you’re merging disparate ServiceNow systems and one hasn’t been updated, you may experience challenges when multiple ServiceNow instances try to talk to each other.

2. Consolidating or integrating multiple ServiceNow instances

This means your processes and all relevant data points are affected because, without proper integration, the data flow across teams could be negatively impacted, resulting in the loss of valuable insights due to unavoidable data silos.

3. Ad-hoc assessments instead of the “full-meal deal”

Although it’s preferable for us if customers subscribe to ALL OUR SERVICES, most of you may not need the “full meal deal.” For instance, you may not need the roadmap (the next blog in our series) or you might think the Technical Review is a waste of your time. Every customer is different, and for that next new ServiceNow customer, we might recommend a completely different mix of assessments. We help you focus on what you might need and don’t approach you with a one-size-fits-all “full-meal-deal.”

A Use Case Example of Our Advisory Services – Mergers & Acquisitions

What happens when you’re attempting to figure out how to consolidate processes between multiple companies that are all coming under one umbrella? If your organization is going through an M&A, you’re likely consolidating resources and discovering:

• Your ServiceNow implementations are incompatible with the acquired company
• Their ServiceNow instance is outdated or off-spec
• You’re both using multiple ServiceNow instances and need help consolidating

With Advisory Services, you operationalize ServiceNow to:

• Improve platform adoption capabilities
• Deliver new features and releases
• Quickly address customer needs and issues that might arise

We’ve outlined below some guidelines to make sure your Advisory Services run smoothly for your digital transformation with common Program Development Outputs, Software Development Lifecycle Cadences (SDLC), Platform Governance & Process standardization, and Training and Communications:

1. Common Program Development Capabilities Outputs

When setting up development outposts, you’ll need to establish roles and responsibilities for the following:

• Program Manager
  Product owner(s)
• Service owner(s)
• Business analysts
  

  

• System administrators
• Developers/integration specialists

2. SDLC cadence

With SDLC, you’ll need to establish:

• Release schedules
• Clear Procedures for Intake/Receiving Work
• Setting priority
• Baseline OLAs for bugs/features
• Visibility and Reporting on Platform Health & Progress
• Regular strategic alignment to the roadmap and organizational objectives

3. Platform Governance & Process Standardization

• Distributed management of knowledge bases, catalog requests, templates

4. Training & Communications

• Newsletters, brown bag information sessions, etc.

Execute Your Advisory Services Solution with our Program Development Capabilities

Don’t be like those small- to mid-size companies that don’t finish their go-live project and fail to meet their project expectations. With Product Development capabilities for Advisory Services, boost customer loyalty and fully implement your ServiceNow strategy.

Stay tuned when we finally assemble your ServiceNow Advisory Services Digital Transformation Roadmap next week! Contact us to learn more.