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Stef Knaepkens
Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) / Director BeLux
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How to improve and maintain ServiceNow quality
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Peak ServiceNow quality, isn’t just a “nice-to-have”, it’s a must have. It’s what keeps your business running smoothly and efficiently, like a well-oiled machine.
But too often, we see organizations failing or neglecting to maintain this quality or fully leverage the platform’s capabilities, holding back their own growth and potential.
Let’s simplify the process of conducting ServiceNow quality checks, improving governance, and keeping the platform healthy. By following these practices, platform owners can confidently handle the challenges of digital transformation, ensuring their ServiceNow system runs smoothly and provides maximum value to their organizations.
How to build a strong ServiceNow foundation?
1) Understand ServiceNow instance health
ServiceNow health is key to keeping the platform running smoothly and delivering maximum value. It focuses on three key areas: performance, stability, and usability.
A healthy system ensures workflows and automations work seamlessly with minimal disruptions. Regular assessments and maintenance are crucial, such as tracking performance metrics, analyzing failures, and applying updates and patches.
Using technical and CMDB health dashboards helps identify issues like technical debt and data quality problems before they grow. By staying proactive, organizations can optimize ServiceNow to meet business goals, support digital transformation, improve reliability, enhance user satisfaction, and reduce overall costs.
2) Implement effective ServiceNow Governance
Establishing and managing effective ServiceNow governance is crucial for maintaining control over the platform. It ensures high-quality, valuable solutions are implemented while making the most of the platform’s out-of-the-box features.
Establishing and managing effective ServiceNow governance is crucial for maintaining control over the platform. It ensures high-quality, valuable solutions are implemented while making the most of the platform’s out-of-the-box features.
Governance focuses on setting clear policies, roles, and responsibilities to guide the platform’s use and development, ensuring it aligns with organizational goals and compliance requirements.
A key aspect of effective ServiceNow governance is defining a vision for how ServiceNow will support business processes. This vision serves as a foundation for creating governance structures, including committees made up of key stakeholders. These committees play an important role in decision-making and ensuring that the platform delivers maximum value.
What are the key committees in ServiceNow Governance?
By fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement, organizations can minimize risks, optimize resources, and drive successful outcomes. Robust ServiceNow governance not only enhances user experience but also supports long-term digital transformation efforts, ensuring the platform remains a strategic asset for the organization. The key committees for effective ServiceNow governance are:
Demand Board: A demand board prioritizes initiatives, oversees decisions, and ensures development efforts focus on generating the greatest business impact.
Architecture Review & Design Board: They are responsible for maintaining and safeguarding platform health. They perform regular audits and quality checks, reviews designs, and make decisions about customizations or deviations to ensure best practices are followed.
Steps to enhance workflow quality
Step 1: Conduct ServiceNow quality check
Conducting a ServiceNow quality check is vital to ensure workflows are efficient, effective, and aligned with business objectives. It involves a systematic review of workflows to identify deviations from best practices, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement.
Step 2: Ensure optimal user experience
Ensuring an optimal user experience is fundamental to leveraging the full potential of your ServiceNow instance. A seamless user experience promotes engagement and efficiency, directly impacting the effectiveness of workflows. To achieve this, prioritize intuitive design and user-friendly interfaces. Here are the next steps:
1. Start by understanding the needs and expectations of your users through surveys and feedback sessions. Use this information to tailor workflows and interfaces that align with user preferences, reducing complexity, and enhancing accessibility.
2. Continuous testing and iteration are crucial. Regular usability testing helps identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
3. Implementing responsive design principles ensures that users have a consistent experience across different devices and platforms.
4. Training and support resources also play an important role in empowers users to utilize the platform effectively.
How to achieve proactive ServiceNow Quality Management?
Achieving successful implementation requires a structured approach that aligns with business goals and addresses user needs. By applying these strategies, organizations can enhance ServiceNow governance, streamline implementations, and maintain a high standard of quality in their digital transformation efforts. Here are 6 steps to ensure quality and efficiency in your projects:
- Establish clear objectives and success metrics – Define measurable goals and outcomes to ensure every implementation aligns with business priorities and user expectations.
- Engage stakeholders early – Involve key stakeholders from the beginning to gather diverse insights and foster buy-in for the project.
- Adopt Agile methodologies – Use flexible and iterative approaches like agile for continuous improvement. You can also incorporate regular sprints and feedback loops to address issues promptly and refine features effectively.
- Prioritize comprehensive testing – Conduct thorough testing at every stage, from development to production, to ensure stability and optimal performance.
- Implement change management processes – Minimize disruptions and enhance user adoption by managing changes systematically and proactively.
- Invest in training and support – Equip end-users with the necessary training and resources to maximize the benefits of new functionalities.
Tips for ServiceNow continuous improvement
Continuous improvement is essential for maintaining a high-performing ServiceNow instance that evolves with your business needs. It ensures that the platform remains efficient, effective, and aligned with strategic goals.
1. Establish feedback loops – Gather insights from users and stakeholders to identify inefficiencies and areas for enhancement in current workflows.
2. Analyze performance metrics – Use performance data and user feedback to pinpoint opportunities for optimization and address inefficiencies.
3. Implement incremental changes – Introduce small, manageable adjustments rather than large-scale overhauls to minimize disruptions and ensure steady progress.
4. Stay updated on ServiceNow features – Regularly review the latest updates and functionalities from ServiceNow to uncover tools and features that enhance performance.
5. Foster a culture of innovation and learning – Encourage team members to explore creative solutions and embrace continuous learning to drive ongoing advancement.
By implementing continuous improvement into your ServiceNow governance framework, your organization can ensure the platform stays aligned with strategic objectives, delivers an enhanced user experience, and supports long-term digital transformation success.
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