1

No doubt you have high hopes for ServiceNow. When

you make the decision to invest in ServiceNow, you

understand that you will be unleashing powerful

capabilities, optimizing workflows, and slashing costs

across your organization. You will be moving from clunky,

outdated IT management processes to a comprehensive,

fully integrated system for enterprise-wide service

management. This transformation will be as successful and

complete as your leadership allows.

Engaging in the hard work of strategic planning for your

ServiceNow rollout is not as easy as many assume. Here

at Crossfuze, we’ve seen time and time again how even

the best-intentioned organizations can get ahead of their

specific ServiceNow planning. When they don’t think

through all the ramifications and the ripple effects of their

ServiceNow transformation, they unknowingly increase

their risk of unanticipated setbacks, deflating failures, and

political blowback.

Some organizations get so excited about ServiceNow’s

diverse features that they don’t fully research their options.

They design an implementation plan that isn’t aligned with

their business strategy. Over time, these plans become

unwieldy and unworkable, and the organization ultimately

isn’t able to optimally integrate ServiceNow

into the business ecosystem.

Some leaders fail to become ambassadors for getting

universal buy-in. They develop their ServiceNow vision

and goals in a silo, and keep their plans close to the vest.

The problem is that ServiceNow’s incredible capabilities

achieve the highest returns when every employee and

division of an organization is invited to adopt the platform.

The ServiceNow transformation happens when everyone

has changed their daily behavior.

Still other organizations “play it safe” and take

baby steps. They dream small and may not realize

what is possible. They opt to implement select features

of ServiceNow. They try to force ServiceNow to fit into

their inefficient, outdated processes, rather than allow

ServiceNow to completely reimagine their workflows.

In the end, this overly cautious management approach

does not result in the type of ServiceNow leadership that

the organization is hoping for that will move the business

forward—and it’s through no fault of the ServiceNow

platform itself.

ServiceNow is a powerful ESM platform that sets up your organization to win.

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2

ServiceNow works best when you’ve got an articulated, well-researched plan in place.

As you prepare for your successful ServiceNow rollout, you need to be doing much more than just reading your

ServiceNow instruction manuals and becoming proficient in the technical underpinnings of the system. You also

must take proactive measures to design a robust, articulated ServiceNow implementation plan.

A well-designed ServiceNow implementation plan should be:

● manageable and realistic

● tailored to your organization’s unique needs and desired outcomes

● founded on best practices

● built to deliver early wins

● complemented with a clear and consistent communication plan

To succeed, you’ll need a sustained level of collaboration from everyone in your organization.

Most organizations struggle to juggle all of these moving parts on their own. Fortunately, they don’t need to remain

in the dark. The process of implementing ServiceNow has been done by many organizations of all sizes and across

all industries. Your organization can turn to an expert ServiceNow partner like Crossfuze who has designed and

executed fully articulated, custom-tailored plans for hundreds of clients.

ServiceNow implementation specialists not only have mastery of the technical nuts and bolts of ServiceNow

architecture, they also can help you devise a strategy for rolling out ServiceNow within the context of your unique,

dynamic business ecosystem.

Working alone, your organization may not be able to anticipate all of the interoffice disagreements, pitfalls and

roadblocks that could slow and derail your progress. By bringing aboard a ServiceNow partner, you will be able to

design a plan that sustains your positive momentum, no matter what the challenge.

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3

The best-laid plans for rolling out ServiceNow start with a roadmap. When you develop that roadmap is also key to ensuring rapid ROI from day one. This means, having it created and communicated at the time of license purchase or immediately after will help others in the organization, like your CFO for example, see that you have a plan of attack to garner ROI sooner rather than later. This increases C-level confidence that you made the right decision and have everything under control and aligned with corporate strategy.

Your roadmap should take you 3-5 years down the road. Some tips on what makes an actionable and win-worthy Roadmap are:

A roadmap is your best-practices strategy for successfully reaching your ServiceNow nirvana.

1) Transparency:Outlining in detail the steps for how you will proceed

from phase to phase is a critical success factor. This

level of detail builds full transparency into your process.

Transparency creates visibility, allowing every employee

and every division of your organization to understand

exactly where you’re headed—and exactly how you’re

planning to get there. This approach also helps to create

buy-in early on from all those directly involved in the

implementation process

An objective of any good roadmap is to inspire confidence

in all stakeholders. Stakeholders need to believe that you

know what you’re doing, and that you’ve thought through

every significant permutation of the rollout and every

possible issue or concern that could arise. They need

assurances you have a plan to overcome known and

unknown challenges and that you understand the

expectations and needs of the user community.

2) Confidence-inspiring:

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3) Early wins:

4) Malleability:

Along your roadmap, plot incremental milestones to

let everyone know that you’re on track to achieve

long-term objectives. During your ServiceNow journey,

what may seem like daily progress to you might feel like

very sporadic progress to the casual observer. The goal is to

deliver clear, frequent wins that everyone can rally around

and communicate them often.

As you plan 3-5 years down the road, you may find that

you’re taking guesses at where your organization will be—

and that’s okay. Thus, the roadmap should be able to adapt

as business needs evolve over time. Remember, a roadmap

is only as good as its ability to remain an effective guide as

situations change. The roadmap should serve as your one

source of truth to guide future buildouts. Set up cadence

meetings with your implementation team and stakeholders

to keep everyone abreast of progress and changes.

In the meetings with these two groups, leave a bit of time

open too for ideas. Innovate thinking can go a long way to

roadmap success.

Long-term planning also enables you to plan for how

ServiceNow will impact your organization far beyond

just the implementation of an initial set of applications.

Because ServiceNow will have such positive ripple effects

on your organization, you can count on growing long-term

demand from other areas of the organization. That means

you’ll encounter more requests that are managed through

ServiceNow and more demand on internal resources.

Your roadmap thus becomes an important, key asset to your

business case when seeking more resources and budget.

5) Forward-thinking:

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These critical features of the roadmap will help put everyone involved in the right mindset as the team begins to conceptualize what actually belongs on the roadmap. Let’s explore that next.

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5

ServiceNow is designed to be universally deployable—this

means beyond just IT. To figure out how you want to use

ServiceNow, start with a thorough review of your existing

business operations.

Many organizations go into this important exercise

thinking that they understand workflows and can

articulate business processes. However, they often

find that it’s actually difficult to document workflows,

especially when theoretical workflows are, in fact, not at

all aligned with how things are actually being done.

It’s important to get to the bottom of how business

processes are really being carried out—because

employees often have reasons for doing things the

way they are.

Even if that reason is because they’re unmotivated and

sloppy, you want to acknowledge this. Likewise, if your

employees have created their own workarounds and

ad-hoc solutions, you need to understand what they’re

actually doing in practice.

The goal of documenting all major business processes is

to define what elements of your business processes are

the pain points—that is, the areas that are preventing

you from being as successful as you should be. By being

aware of all of the problems and deficiencies upfront, you

can identify opportunities to improve them during the

implementation. That’s the best way to build an optimized

system in ServiceNow and deliver sustainable wins.

Start with a thorough self-assessment of business operations and needs.

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Brainstorm what ESM processes ideally should look like.

Most companies migrating to ServiceNow have a long way

to go to formulate their vision. ServiceNow often represents

their first brush with the concept of Enterprise Service

Management (ESM). ESM is a fundamentally different way

of thinking about business processes. ESM unites

traditionally disconnected, discrete workflows under one

all-encompassing umbrella.

To develop your vision of what this ESM ecosystem ideally

should look like, start by learning about ServiceNow’s

functionalities and features. First and foremost, you should

understand how the ServiceNow model of service delivery

closes key efficiency gaps and reduces waste. Develop a

baseline understanding of how all business services and

IT infrastructure are managed end-to-end in ServiceNow.

It is through this integrated approach that a single system

of record is created. This approach also accelerates and

automates workflows, creates transparency and oversight,

and improves self-service options.

Next, study how other companies have used ServiceNow to

achieve a total transformation of their business ecosystem.

ServiceNow is not an interim solution or an incremental stepping stone to something else. ServiceNow is the definitive ESM platform.

It molds and adapts into any business ecosystem; your job is

to figure out how to optimally fit it into yours.

One of the most important things you can learn from

other organizations is which ServiceNow functionalities

are realistic and advantageous to customize—and which

functionalities you may regret tinkering with and altering

from their default settings. ServiceNow can be customized

in almost any way you might dream up, but the relevant

question is whether you should. Playing around with one set

of features could negatively impact another. For example,

when you tinker with one set of features, you could be

unknowingly changing the functionality of another set

of features. This is an unfortunate event that presents the

risk of serious development challenges while extending the

implementation schedule farther out into the future than

originally planned.

Finally, keep in mind that when you roll out ServiceNow, you

must make a clean break with your past. We can’t emphasis

this enough! During a transition of this size and scope, you’ll

no doubt run into many folks who want to cling to the old

ways of doing things. They will draw lines in the sand or try

to negotiate compromises. Giving them too much control

is a mistake. You’ll get far more out of your ServiceNow

investment if you’re not forcing ServiceNow to conform

to your legacy IT systems and mesh with outdated service

management processes.

The transition to ServiceNow can sometimes feel like a

tough and interminably long road because it’s all so foreign

to you. You are not alone. Many share this feeling when first

starting out with ServiceNow or starting over from a failed

implementation attempt. Don’t give up! Keep everyone

focused on ServiceNow best practices. Don’t let the

naysayers and doubters disrupt your plans; keep

your course. Instead, allow ServiceNow to work its magic

and disrupt your organization in the best way possible.

After all, there’s a reason why ServiceNow has been

repeatedly named a leader in the ITSM space

by Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.

6 Crossfuze.com 888.829.5511

7

ServiceNow can be many things to any organization. But to your individual organization, it can only be a defined number of things at once. Therefore, you must define what are the most important things you want to achieve with ServiceNow.

As you set your priorities and populate your roadmap accordingly, here are some tips to keep in mind:

Define your priorities to define the right tasks.

1) Start with the high-return, low-effort items:

2) Prioritize progress, not perfection:

When trying to decide what comes first, it’s important

to remember that success begets success. Set yourself

up to score early wins, so that you can establish positive

momentum out of the gate. The best way to guarantee

early wins is to prioritize projects that have require

relatively little effort and expertise—and yet will yield

a strong return on investment.

Your roadmap shouldn’t be designed around rolling out fully

polished and fully functional products. As counterintuitive

as this may seem, you’ll only be setting yourself up for

disappointing setbacks if your roadmap calls for perfection

and error-free outcomes. ServiceNow takes time to figure

out how to integrate fully and optimally into your business

processes. Furthermore, the individuals who perform these

processes need time, training, and continuous positive

reinforcement to master their new workflows.

Your roadmap priorities should stress improvements to your

processes, as these will give you incremental victories that

move you closer to the ESM model.

Your long-term ability to achieve the outcomes you desire is

dependent on populating your roadmap with appropriate,

specific tasks—and establishing an appropriate pace for

achieving them. If you pick unrealistic tasks or vague tasks

or too many tasks, valuable time will be wasted. Instead

of lifting up your team and the user base with a series of

sustained victories, you’ll likely be demoralizing them with a

series of defeats and setbacks.

3) Plot achievable tasks:

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4) Build outreach, education, and training into your roadmap:

5) Make clear how you will handle potential challenges and risks:

6) Use an agile development model:

Your roadmap is wholly incomplete if the only tasks you

list are technical and related to ServiceNow integration

into your business ecosystem. So much of what makes

ServiceNow transformative is tied to your ability to build

confidence in every individual and division within your

organization that the investment was the judicious and

offers the best possible upside. To do that, you need to

conduct extensive outreach, education, and training, and

get everyone familiar with the tasks at hand. Ultimately,

everyone must be confident in your vision and your ability

to deliver. Your goal should be to get unequivocal and

universal buy-in so you can deliver business leadership, not

just IT services.

:

One of the best ways to engender confidence in your

ServiceNow implementation plan is to think through how

you will deal with problems as they arise. You want to be

able to reassure skeptics and critics that you are listening

to their concerns and have already anticipated some

challenges and accounted for them in your implementation

plan. A clearly defined feedback loop becomes invaluable.

In the development world, there are two main approaches

to managing projects. A waterfall method emphasizes a

streamlined, sequential development process, where the

development team proceeds in a linear fashion toward

the final product—without stopping. By contrast, an agile

method calls for repeated test-and-adjust through the

development process. ServiceNow is a platform that is best

rolled out with an agile methodology; the end users need to

experience each feature and capability to truly know how it

should be customized.

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9

Your roadmap isn’t a theoretical formality that you

develop and then shove aside as you get rolling. A truly

effective roadmap should serve as your master ServiceNow

implementation guide; it should keep every member of your

organization focused and on track for the next 3-5 years.

Hence, you want to develop ways to measure and assess

how effectively your roadmap is serving your organization’s

needs and expectations.

As you’re designing your roadmap, you can get a sense of

how assessable a task is by asking yourself a simple question:

If I select this element in my roadmap, would I be able to

justify how this component supports and enhances our

long-term strategic vision? Chances are you’ll struggle with

answering this question if you can’t define the relationship

between the task and the big-picture goal.

Beyond just the ability to evaluate your progress and

performance, you’ll need to be able to justify resource

allocations to upper management. At any given stage on the

roadmap, you want to be able to show that your employees’

time and talents are being utilized optimally.

You also want to show that the pacing is balanced for quality

and speed—neither too slow nor too fast.

Finally, you want to be able to measure the level of

engagement and buy-in on the ServiceNow rollout from

individual employees and divisions within your organization.

At any given stage, you want to be able to define what

success should look like, so you will know if you’ve

fallen short. Your roadmap is the perfect place for this,

as you are able to “chunk out” all of the necessary pieces

that will lead up to your end goals.

While you should be able to measure and track your progress

at any given time for any given task, you also should prepare

your roadmap for a formal, year-end review. When you’re

holding a formal session to officially review the project’s

progress—ideally once a quarter to communicate your

wins—you’ll want to use your metrics to characterize what

worked, what didn’t, and what to expect. These insights

must then be documented and discussed with your team

for performance improvements.

You must be able to measure and assess your performance and progress all along your roadmap.

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10

Despite what you hope is possible, your

ServiceNow roadmap cannot solve the problems of

an organization that lacks expertise, resources, and

leadership commitment. There is an entire industry built

around studying, improving, and optimizing ServiceNow

ESM best practices. This is an industry that demands

constant focus and sustained attention to master.

Professional implementation consultants dedicate their

entire careers to helping businesses accomplish their

ServiceNow vision.

When crafting your roadmap, don’t hesitate to seek

the services of a professional ServiceNow consultant.

The cost of a consultant will be insignificant compared to

the wisdom, expertise, and perspective that you will have

at your fingertips. Your ServiceNow consultant will help

you achieve important early victories and avoid pitfalls

and obstacles, which are unfortunately all too common

in an industry where an estimated 75% of all enterprise

resource planning (ERP) projects fail.

And your ServiceNow consultant will help you transform

your entire organization in the most

streamlined, optimized manner possible.

You’ll remove friction and waste, modernize workflows

and processes, save money on operational spend, and

unearth new, untapped revenue streams.

Crossfuze is a ServiceNow Gold Partner, one of only

sixteen in the world. We have deep familiarity with

the platform’s architecture, and we know exactly how

ServiceNow is intended to be developed and used. That

means we can offer you a level of insight and expertise

that is rare in the ESM implementation industry and

reimagine services that will change your business for the

better. We offer a full suite of time-tested, user-approved

Turnkey solutions that are ready to be dropped into your

ServiceNow ecosystem. The Turnkeys will deliver a safer,

faster ServiceNow implementation—guaranteed.

For more information, visit crossfuze.com today or

contact us at LetsTalk@crossfuze.com.

You must recognize the limits of your knowledge and familiarity with ServiceNow.

© Crossfuze 2017. All rights reserved. Roadmap_Download_122316

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