1. State your transformation vision and outcomes
Success Pillar: State and measure your business goals

2. Success Pillars – Structure
State and measure your business goals
Actively lead the transformation
Get your ServiceNow foundations right
Create excitement, drive adoption 1
State your transformation vision and outcomes 1
Engage executive sponsor to drive change and remove roadblocks 1
Manage to
“Out-of-the Box” 1
Design an engaging self-service employee & customer experience 2
Build your business case 2
Find, manage, and coordinate capable, certified partners 2
Discover and map your service assets 2
Design an optimal agent and rep experience 3
Build a phased
program plan, identify quick win 3
Build dedicated, dynamic governance process, policies & team 3
Plan your architecture, instances, integrations and data flows 3
Create change management plan 4
Baseline and track performance, usage KPIs and metrics 4
Reimagine how you want work processes to flow 4
Plan for upgrades at least once a year 4
Build an internal team of ServiceNow experts & train users 5
Define and map out your business services 5
Build a community of champions 6
Manage platform demand

3. State your transformation vision and outcomes
Many organization have digital transformation as a strategic imperative, but few state a vision that translates into tangible and realistic measures of success that can inform planning and budget decisions.
A clearly defined and communicated transformation vision and outcomes sets a “North Star” for teams in implementing the NowPlatform to deliver business value. It helps them understand how their work contributes to broader business goals, and helps senior management see the benefits of their technology investment.
Insight: State your transformation vision and outcomes
A strong transformation vision should address four questions:
Vision – What’s the ideal future state for our customers and team?
Expected business outcomes – What business value will we realize?
Desired business capabilities – What execution strategies are necessary to achieve this vision?
Key measures of success – How will we know when we’ve realized our targeted value?
In the absence of an effective transformation vision at the organization level, create one for your Now Platform implementation and link it to the established strategic drivers of the company like operational excellence, cost reduction, or employee experience. Shape the transformation vision to ensure it translates into measurable outcomes for your team, and effectively communicate it to across the organization to support roadmap planning, budget allocation, and prioritization decisions. Regularly revisit the transformation vision and your desired business capabilities as you scale ServiceNow, and as your organization’s business strategy evolves.
Key Implementation Steps
Start
Improve
Optimize
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2.  Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

4. Step 1: Assess your transformation opportunity
A strong transformation vision needs to align with the strategic and operational aspirations of the organization. To identify the right direction for your vision, start with an understanding of your organization’s goals and the opportunities you or your team have to realize them.
Identify the goals of your organization and senior leadership
Identify your organization’s mission, vision, and strategy. Explore:
Messages from CXOs on their priorities and focus areas for the year
Your organization’s financial reports
Your organization's strategic plans for business lines and back-office functions
Interview your executive sponsor, senior executives, and function leaders to identify their needs. Find answers to the questions below:
What business goals (such as improve employee productivity, time to market, reduce cost) do they care most about?
What are barriers do they face in achieving their most important business goals?
What’s new, what’s changed, and what do they anticipate to change in the next year?
Assess your organization’s current ability to deliver on the transformational business outcomes
Identify current and anticipated barriers – in terms of people, process, and technology -- to deliver on current and future business needs. Conduct:
Interviews with 5-10 end-users (employees or customers) to understand pain-points with their service experience
Interviews with 5-10 process users (e.g. service desk reps.) to identify barriers in mitigating those pain-points
An evaluation of your current technology to assess limitations in removing the identified barriers
Practitioner Insight: During the interviews consider using the 5 Why’s methodology for getting to root cause of the problems identified. Also, consider conducting workshops or focus group conversations to reach multiple voices at the same time.
Learn about industry and market trends
Read external articles to understand the strategic drivers of digital transformation* and how leading organizations are responding to them
Attend conferences to network and learn from peers about their approaches to digital transformation*
* Your vision doesn’t have to be about digital transformation if that is not what your organization is focused on. Instead, analyze various possibilities and capabilities enabled through the NowPlatform to identify a “to-be” state that is most relevant for your organization.
Steps
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2. Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

5. Step 2: Conduct a visioning exercise
A vision statement is a simple description of a “to-be” state that the organization or team wants to accomplish. It provides a shared understanding of where the organization is going, and what changes are required to get there. Draft a vision statement describing what you want to achieve and the business value you want to create through ServiceNow.
Conduct the visioning exercise to draft the transformation vision statement*
Schedule a workshop (ideally, half- or full-day) with key ServiceNow stakeholders who can identify and articulate opportunities for business value. Include, where possible, service owners, business unit heads (or liaisons), and other senior leaders knowledgeable about your organization’s strategy. Use the following agenda:
Review findings on the transformation opportunity from step 1 and prioritize (or force rank) them based on their business impact
Document the desired “to-be” state. Ensure the workshop participants decide on a desired “to-be” state that is attainable in next 2-3 years
Clearly indicate the business value or outcomes enabled through the desired “to-be” state. Key business outcomes enabled through the investment in the NowPlatform include: increase cost savings, reduce risk, decrease time to market, and improve employee and customer satisfaction
Draft a transformation vision statement (example: Deliver a consumer-like IT service experience for employees to improve productivity and satisfaction). Ensure it is: 
Written in simple, jargon-free language, and no more than 50 words long
Anchored around business goals CXOs care about
Specific, yet flexible — i.e. it should highlight a specific target, but allow for flexibility to innovate on the path to achieve the target
Attainable and desirable enough to keep the team motivated
Document at least five to seven underlying beliefs and assumptions to know when you may have to course correct
Build consensus and identify next-steps to validate, refine, and socialize the transformation vision
Practitioner Insight: Good vision statements cannot always be drafted in a single meeting—it takes time and requires input from multiple different perspectives. Start with a good working definition and continuously refine it as new perspectives and access to new capabilities are made available.
* Note: The scope for the transformation vision here is limited to Now Platform implementation. Think about the desired “to-be” state and expected business outcomes post Now Platform implementation.
Steps
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2. Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

6. Step 3a: Identify the capabilities you need to build
A transformation vision can be difficult to connect to ground-level work without a clear description of the capability gaps that must be addressed to reach the “to-be” state. Identify and document measurable business capabilities—no more than three, to ensure focus—that you want to enable through the NowPlatform.
Document business capabilities that are necessary to realize the vision
Work with your Enterprise Architecture function, who typically have cross-functional insights into business capabilities critical for your organization, to identify the capability gaps that you must address to realized your transformation vision. Examples of capabilities enabled through ServiceNow include:
Increase effective self-service
Enable faster support (incident, inquiries, and issues) resolution
Automate manual processes quickly
Lower development cost and time
Select no more than three business capabilities for immediate focus. Ensure the selected business capabilities are:
Based on delivering on the transformation vision — map the outcome to specific questions senior executives asked (in step 1) to make sure
Indicative of the benefits to be received, and who will receive them
Measurable to track progress accurately
Practitioner Insight: In case you don’t have an Enterprise Architecture function, consider working with the business analyst function or the internal strategy group. If none are available, bring senior leaders in your team together to brainstorm on business outcomes most relevant to you. You can also consult with ServiceNow experts to learn how other organizations enable business value through ServiceNow.
Steps
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2. Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

7. Step 3b: Define measures of success
Effective measures of success set objective targets for each business capability you wish to enable. They also help track progress on accomplishing the expected business outcomes associated with the vision and flag the need for timely corrective measures.
Define measures of success for each business capability required to realized the transformation vision
Draft measures of success against the business capabilities identified in step 3a. For example: Increase self-service usage by 50% by year-end. To discover key measures of success, ask the following questions:
What metrics have we tracked in past for this capability? Do we have any historical data that could indicate performance on it?
What metrics do external subject matter experts use to track this capability?
At the end of the year, what data would I need to show progress towards the vision (during conversations with senior management)?
What data would I need to diagnose underlying issues and their sources?
Validate the measures of success to ensure they are:
Relevant to the transformation vision—map them to goals that matter for senior executives and functional leaders
Indicative of actions you can take right now to improve
Objectively measurable—there is limited scope for subjective assessment in it
Backed with easily available data points to measure
Time bound—indicate by when we need to realize it
Create a dashboard that tells a clear story on the business capability enabled.
Practitioner Insight: Create visual representations of the metrics that drive effective decision making. Refer to Success Playbook on how to get started with performance analytics for best practices on using ServiceNow’s Performance Analytics module for effective organizational decision-making.
Steps
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2. Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

8. Step 4: Socialize the vision and outcomes
Effective socialization of your vision and outcomes ensures that leaders across the organization are able to articulate your vision, how their team contributes to it, and how ServiceNow will enable their business outcomes. Lead your socializing efforts with a explanation on how the future state will be distinctly different and helpful in achieving the desired business outcomes. Answer your team’s questions and concerns to build clarity and transparency.
Build internal support for your proposed vision and outcomes
Present the transformation vision and outcomes, along with a description of how you plan to realize it through ServiceNow, to your executive sponsor and business partners (functional leaders you support):
Highlight how the future state will be distinctly different and helpful in achieving the desired outcomes
Ask if the vision and outcomes are solving for the right problems and business needs.
Ask for open and honest feedback. Reinforce that the vision and outcomes will drive your ServiceNow roadmap.
Ask for guidance on anything missing or additional points needed.
Communicate the vision and outcomes to teams working on ServiceNow
Communicate your vision and expected outcomes to business leaders and for stakeholders involved in implementation of the NowPlatform. Include:
The transformation vision statement ( the desired “to-be” state and expected business outcomes)
Desired capabilities enabled through ServiceNow
Key measures of success to track progress against each capability enabled
Ask team managers and business leaders to cascade the vision and expected outcomes down to individual team members. Provide them:
Communication templates they can modify and use with their teams
Coaching on how to address concerns and frequently asked questions
Clear guidance on how to solicit feedback and additional questions
Answer questions and concerns from business leaders, managers, and their teams
Practitioner Insight: On a single page, map the transformation vision, with the business outcomes, their respective capabilities and measures of success to communicate the connection clearly to all stakeholders. This single page also acts a reminder that individuals can pin near their workspaces.
Steps
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2. Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

9. Step 5: Review and expand on the vision
Effective transformation vision and business outcomes are created after multiple iterations of refinement and revalidation. Along with regularly tracking progress, you should re-evaluate the assumptions to ensure your vision remains relevant, and look for opportunities to expand the vision as new business opportunities emerge.
Refine the transformation vision
Report on the performance (quarterly, if possible) to senior executives and function leaders you support. Ask for:
Feedback on how helpful ServiceNow has been in solving their needs
Insights on how their needs have evolved and changed
Ideas on how you can further support their needs and improve business value realized
If you have a strategic governance team, share your findings with them and ensure revisiting the transformation vision is part of their roadmap. 
In the absence of a strategic governance team, bring your executive sponsor, platform owner, and any business leaders who own expected business outcomes together (yearly, if not sooner) to do the following:
Review progress against measures of success
Analyze what’s working and what’s not working
Refine the vision and underlying outcomes
Create a communication plan to highlight performance and revised vision
Expand the transformation vision
Identify business or functional leaders across the organization who may benefit from and are devoted to service improvement.
Highlight success stories under your current transformation vision to secure their buy-in.
Expand the transformation vision to incorporate their needs, using the visioning exercise discussed in step 2.
Based on past experience, help leaders prioritize the right business capabilities and measures of success based on their needs
Communicate the extended transformation vision and outcomes to all ServiceNow stakeholders—everyone working on or impacted by ServiceNow.
Practitioner Insight: In order to expand the transformation vision across your enterprise, you’ll need to gain executive sponsorship throughout your organization. Refer to Success Playbook on Build Organizational Support for Enterprise Services for additional details.
Steps
1. Assess your transformation opportunity
2. Conduct a visioning exercise
3. Define measures of success
4. Socialize the vision and outcomes
5. Review and expand the transformation vision

10. KPIs and Stakeholders Key Performance Indicators Essential KPIs
% teams with goals tied with the transformation vision and outcomes
% of executives who can articulate the transformation vision
‘Nice to Have’
% of process users (e.g. service desk reps.), admins, and developers who can articulate how their work relates with the organization’s digital transformation vision
Stakeholder Map
Responsible/Accountable
ServiceNow Platform Owner
Executive Sponsor
CIO
CFO
Consulted/Informed
Business Leaders
Service Owners
Application managers
Business Partners
ServiceNow Users (inform only)