About the Client
A large federal agency was looking for a FedRAMP-certified cloud Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution to modernize their IT Service Management and transform their current IT Service Desk ticketing system, Change management system, Asset Management System and related applications into a consolidated application to replace their homegrown array of tools used to manage tasks independently creating a painful experience for end users and management working towards enhancing service Delivery and reducing operational spending.
Objective
Develop a Proof-of-Concept to demonstrate the power of the ServiceNow platform and its workflow capabilities in enabling the modernization and transformation of the agency’s disparate IT Service Management applications into a centralized cloud-based application as a “Single Source of Truth.”
Our end goal was to provide a solution that will dismantle the current silos-based approach to service delivery, enable real-time and robust communication between the end-user and the service desk, establish processes that enable collaboration across departments, drive accountability with Service Level Agreements (SLAs), enhance end-user experience and operational efficiency while reducing the operating costs.
Challenges
Division Chiefs/program managers with different mission focus operating in silos.
Homegrown tools that people are used to and have been at the forefront for a long time
Data ownership, understanding who owns what data, and the dependencies.
Building awareness and developing confidence, “New Technology Learning Curve.”
Execution
About SYSUSA
SYSUSA’s extensive ServiceNow experience with federal and commercial clients in optimizing, modernizing, and converting long-standing business challenges into automated workflows using ServiceNow out-of-the-box (OOTB) features has enabled the transformation of services and increased efficiencies for our clients.
As a ServiceNow Premier Partner, we maintain a strong and collaborative relationship with ServiceNow, leveraged to maximize the value of OOTB features.
We have delivered ServiceNow projects from net-new Platform and application builds, to scaling projects across the enterprise, to remediation of stalled projects. We accelerate digital transformation using proven and mature capabilities with a systematic management approach to incoming demand, resulting in business process efficiency and economic and mission success.
Understanding the Business:
Project success depends on establishing the KPIs by gaining a deeper understanding of customer pain points, and sometimes we must peel through multiple layers to get to the source. During our initial conversations with the customer, we had developed some understanding of their needs, but it was not enough for a successful delivery.
Defining the requirements is a key enabler of the development process and is anchored in our Agile requirements model, which provides a framework for articulating desired system behavior and capabilities.
Our Scrum teams are composed of experienced, competent engineers that have worked in complex environments and possess expertise in the collection and decomposition of requirements, creation of user stories, and the use of requirements management tools such as JIRA, Azure DevOps, and ServiceNow’s own Agile 2.0.
Before we could talk about how ServiceNow compared to the things they liked about the current platform and removed the pain points, we wanted to have a good understanding of their current applications so that we can map their current state to ServiceNow and elaborate on the advances it offered.
We started with brainstorming sessions, workshops with the program offices, and understanding their current processes, what they liked about it that they would like to see in the new solution, the pain points they would like to eliminate, and why they were pain points. We wanted to understand if the pain points were due to a lack of training or if they were cumbersome to follow. We also discussed with the senior leadership across multiple program offices to understand their business needs and desired outcomes to help them adopt the platform. Once the workshops were completed, we successfully mapped the current processes and business requirements to the ServiceNow capabilities.
Validating the solution
We invested significant time and effort in understanding the current operating environment and its architecture, tools, business processes, user roles, and responsibilities. The requirements gathered were captured as a hierarchy of artifacts that described functional and non-functional elements of the system in the context of the enterprise.
Detailed implementation work was articulated as User Stories and Journey Maps and technical performance measures with associated test and evaluation objectives. This approach was detailed in our Requirements Management Plan which was periodically updated to reflect changes.
The information was presented to the stakeholders, and feedback was solicited to make any required improvements for stakeholder acceptance.
We extensively demonstrated various ServiceNow platform capabilities and how their current processes will align with industry best practices in the platform, maintained and enhanced using specific scenarios impacting the programs.
Once all the stakeholders had reviewed the proposed solution and approach and approved it, we started with the development of sprint schedules and tasks to be completed in each sprint with review cycles and a testing approach. The solution included creating digital workflows, notifications, data ingestion processes, service level agreements, dashboards, etc., to address the needs of each vertical program manager/division chief.
Solution Approach
SYSUSA leverages the ServiceNow NowCreate Methodology to configure, customize, integrate, or implement the ServiceNow Platform and applications. This methodology has been applied to hundreds of successful ServiceNow implementations globally.
It provides several value-added activities, tasks, tools, and templates that ensure customer and project success while maintaining the quality of deliverables.
We also establish parallel processes to proactively address governance and project management activities throughout the project lifecycle. Following the methodology, we ensure a structured approach for the DME and O&M activities. To realize the business objectives using the ServiceNow platform capabilities, our teams focused on a value-driven platform configuration aligned to business goals and baselined to measure value with the following broad-level goals.
End Result
We created a pilot demonstrating the platform value to the leadership while helping individual stakeholders realize the importance of consolidation and centralization. The solutions helped the program leads realize its impact on their work and enabled them to do more with less.
- A single source of truth for all IT and related activities
- Customer visibility to their information with real-time status
- Management ability to gain a holistic view of the enterprise with dashboards and reports
- Built on best practices to enhance service efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction.
Customer Satisfaction
