Keys to Building a Stellar ServiceNow Program Roadmap

Whether you’re coming to this discussion with an existing ServiceNow roadmap, starting from a blank sheet, or anywhere in between, crafting a roadmap that actually brings value to your ServiceNow program as well as your broader organization can be challenging. In this blog series, we’ll help you think through four key roadmap areas: Technology, Process, People, and Data. The goal is to break down some key roadmap concepts to help you see real-world, actionable, and measurable benefits from your ServiceNow road mapping efforts. First up is the Technology Roadmap.

Strategies for a ServiceNow Technology Roadmap

In building a ServiceNow program roadmap, you’re going to be creating a visual representation of known and anticipated work. The purpose of that work is to drive value for your organization from your ServiceNow investments. In this section, we’ll consider a few options for visualizing that work: By Workstream;  By Persona, and; By Org Priority.

By Workstream

Your roadmap can be structured around different ServiceNow modules, applications, or toolsets. This helps ensure that your roadmap visuals provide each functional area the attention it needs. We commonly work with organizations who conceive of their ServiceNow work tightly aligned to their entitlements/licenses. If your organization fits this description, you may build a ServiceNow roadmap with lanes for each module you are entitled to:

• IT Service Management (ITSM): Optimizing Incident, Problem, and Change Management.
• IT Operations Management (ITOM): Enhancing Observability (monitoring and alerting activities), Discovery, and Service Mapping.
• IT Asset Management (ITAM): Increasing the maturity of Hardware and Software Asset Management.
• Customer Service Management (CSM): Elevating customer experiences with seamless case resolution.
• HR Service Delivery (HRSD): Automating HR processes for better employee engagement.

Tip: This level may be too high or abstracted for your organization. If that’s the case, you may break down these roadmap lanes into individual applications. If you do, consider using color variations to better represent the related by separate lanes; e.g. each ITSM lane is a different shade of green.

By Persona

Different stakeholders experience ServiceNow differently. Your roadmap may be more effective if you emphasize those stakeholder experiences and the work you’re doing to improve the user experience and increase platform capabilities. We commonly build roadmaps visually differentiated into the following persona-based lanes:

• Employee Experience Improvements: Self-service portals, AI-driven chatbots, and automation of repetitive tasks.
• Customer Experience Enhancements: Faster case resolution, proactive support, and personalized service journeys.
• Fulfiller Experience Enablers: Improvements in the ITSM, HR, or Case Management functions for internal Task fulfillers.
• Platform-Wide Activities: Those actions, changes, or features that apply through the entire platform; like major upgrades.

By Organizational Priority

As your enterprise workflow management platform, ServiceNow can and should be connected to your broader, organizational priorities. One way to bolster and demonstrate this connection is to build a roadmap with lanes aligned to major strategic objectives or priorities.

• Major Strategic Initiatives: Digital transformation, enterprise automation, and business agility.
• Transformational Efforts: Adoption of AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics for IT and business processes.
• Named Organizational Activities: Many organization-wide efforts have memorable, tactical, or catchy names. Incorporating these into your roadmap as lanes can help quickly convey how ServiceNow is being used to further these efforts.

What Should Be on your Technology Roadmap? 🚗

Regardless of how you choose to structure your ServiceNow program’s Technology Roadmap, there are several sets of items we recommend including. Remember, the roadmap is providing a visual representation of your known and planned work. A well-structured roadmap should include:

• Adoption of Existing Licensed Technologies: Ensuring full utilization of already available tools.
• Major Upgrades: Keeping up with ServiceNow’s bi-annual releases and feature updates.
• Evaluation of New Technologies: Staying ahead with innovations like Virtual Agents and AI-powered workflows that you may pilot or evaluate in a sub-production environment first.
• User Experience Improvements: Continuous enhancements to usability and efficiency.
• Ongoing Maintenance: Including fixes for issues and challenges allows you to both plan for and communicate the reality of operating modern, complex technology platforms like ServiceNow.

Who Makes Your Roadmap? 🚘

Effective ServiceNow roadmaps require collaboration. Depending on your choices for your Technology Roadmap strategy and contents, you may involve different groups or individuals at different times. These people can assist you in building and reviewing your roadmap to ensure it has maximum effect.

• Your Steering Committee (ServiceNow Strategy Governance): Driving strategic alignment and oversight.
• Your Demand Board (ServiceNow Portfolio Governance): Process and App Owners prioritizing Demands, configuration decisions, and investments.
• Your Technology Governance Team: ServiceNow Architects incorporating current and future innovations in ServiceNow capabilities.
• Your ServiceNow Account Team: Including your Account Executive, Solution Consultant, and ServiceNow Impact advisors.
• Your Trusted Partners, like Astrica! We can help you improve an existing roadmap, build one from scratch, or expand it beyond just technology to fully unlock ServiceNow’s potential as a workflow and transformation enablement engine.

Integrating Technology with Process, People, and Data

The Technology Roadmap we covered today is just one part of your overall strategy. To get the most from your ServiceNow program, we recommend that you integrate it with additional roadmaps:

• Process Roadmap: Align technology implementation with process optimization.
• People Roadmap: Ensure proper training, adoption, and governance structures.
• Data Roadmap: Focus on data integrity, analytics, decision-making, and AI readiness.

These topics will be explored in future posts in this series! 📌

By structuring your roadmap thoughtfully, you can ensure that ServiceNow evolves from just a ticketing tool into a strategic enabler for your organization’s success. Connect with Astrica today to hear how we can help you across your ServiceNow program.