hey everyone welcome back to my channel it is so good to have you here with the servicenow ecosystem being as large as it is i've been thinking about ways to educate folks on what partners are out there and what unique advantages they provide so we're going to start off this partner showcase series with a friend of mine they're an emerging partner in the federal public sector but they do private clients as well they've got some really cool approaches to engagement management which is part of the reason i've been dying to have them on the show it is my pleasure to introduce you to integrity pro consulting ladies and gentlemen co-founder and ceo mateen riaz hey mateen how's it going hey robert doing well how are you i'm doing great man it's great to have you on the show so tell us about ipc is it a sales services or technology and training partner all of them actually we are a premier servicenow partner and we're part of the sales services training and technology partner programs wow good for you man is i mean you guys haven't been along that long and you've already gone into all four of those corners huh i mean we've been a part of the servicenow ecosystem for quite some time in our individual capacities with other partners so bringing all that experience to the table when we started this business you know it really gave us a head start so mateen i met you at sko and you guys told me what your company was all about and i'm really excited to bring that to my audience but before we talk about the deep ipc difference why don't you tell us how you got started with ip yeah sure robert um so i've always had this entrepreneurial spirit and it was that drive and passion along with amazing support that i've gotten from my family and friends that gave me the courage to actually take the leap in the first place after all of the great experiences i've had in the servicenow space across multiple organizations big and small i needed to build something that reflected not only my thoughts on customer success but then also a company culture where the people first mentality was actually a priority at ipc we believe our team is at the heart of every success and place heavy emphasis on coaching mentoring and team growth and let's jump right to the heart of the matter there you mentioned that you had your own thoughts on customer success and that's what motivated you to start a company tell us how ipc is different sure so too many times partners approach customers with these large complex solutions paired with the big bang approach like give us three years and then you're gonna change your enterprise at ipc we like to approach every customer with realistic solutions with real timelines and it's important for us and important for the customer to understand that we need to take a journey to get to their desired outcomes and it's typically a marathon not a sprint essentially we're taking a phased strategic transformation paired with ocm organizational change management best practices and then we tie in our own custom app devnow as a guide for quicker more thorough initiation phases especially for customers that don't have a clear vision of their exact endpoint is dev now an accelerator no we try not to advertise accelerators because too often it's like a square peg and a round hole no two customers are the same so therefore no one size really fits all it's just as much if not more work to deploy an accelerator and then work backwards to undo the unnecessary configurations than it is to like do it right the first time so what we do is provide industry aligned stories to guide the conversations and workshops in order to solicit the appropriate and relevant requirements so it's more like a library of potential stories than it is the code that deploys the stories yeah precisely it's the entire content pack including stories and workshop material for all functional activities that are needed to help gather requirements more quickly and we found that utilizing this approach has helped shorten time spent on our discovery phases by about 30 percent wow and i'm imagining in my head that all the workshops i've been in we're basically they're talking about the app maybe they're showing the app and it's a ride-along and then somebody is scribing the stories and conversation into like word or something and then after the workshops and it might even be days later somebody is almost interpreting that workshop notes and then building the stories after the fact hours days after the fact is that what you're is that the dragon you're trying to slay there by just having the stories up front yeah so we want to take our industry best practice industry standard stories based on you know which lateral which vertical your organization falls in whether it's finance whether it's you know government whether it's defense and bring those stories to the customer in a story format and then workshops tied to them that allow us to then tailor those stories to the individual organization itself okay so really simply put then you're taking the stories that other vendors might go ahead and with a certain amount of hubris package that into what we call the accelerator so it's yours is like not the configurations just the stories and those act as a template and they fill in the blanks or you address their specific needs from that story is that correct that's correct today devnow is integrated with the itbm suite of servicenow and will create the story sprint and test case records for the selected stories that we're using for that implementation and that allows your engagement managers to hit the ground running and then in a future release the selected configurations for those stories will also be deployable deployable but not deployed correct oh that's great i love that i mean i spent my last architecture gig i dealt heavily with that you know the vendor came in and let's just deploy this itbm accelerator and it's like what's in it oh you know just stuff and things best practice and 2 000 items in an update set and not a lick of documentation and i'm like no no please don't do this to me right see that all the time so dev now gets it started it makes that 30 quicker right that opening phase what happens after dev now after dev now we focus on a phased implementation that incorporates a heavy emphasis on ocm and robert let me tell you why we add so much emphasis on ocm when we implement a new technology all the focus is put on making sure the solution delivers all the features that the stakeholders want right we forget though that the technology is actually just a facilitator and it's the people that use it and how they use it that really makes the difference so many executives and decision makers and stakeholders they think about bringing about change is as simple as explaining the need for change to their organizations like hey this is a great product and this is why you need it and that's enough but in reality people must really feel a deep desire and even a responsibility to make that change for it to really come across as important and valued and increase the adoption rate according to mckinsey and procy projects that incorporate little to no ocm components result in a 35 percent roi with extremely low adoption rates of the product while projects with a heavy focus on ocm result in a 143 percent roi with very high adoption rates and user satisfaction rates due to their involvement along the way those are some magic words buddy i i think back to all the times where i was on a big project and at the start of the project let's ask folks at the organization what they need out of the new tool like a net new implementation let's say and then right everybody else goes into a black box for a couple months and then they come out the other end with like oh hey come to your training session and see the servicenow application that we've built and not uncommonly the people who have to use it are sitting there saying what the heck is this right what is yeah what is this what does it do what are you talking about yeah when did we ever give you any feedback of what we need and you know maybe even the needs have shifted during that time you know it there's just so many ways this can go wrong when you plug in gather information plug out and then show up with a product someday yeah absolutely could you give an example of an ocm ceremony or artifact that is say different than what normally happens in servicenow project management yeah sure so ocm activities although they fall within the project life cycle they're typically much more unique and conducted separately from your project management items and then at a high level of ocm ceremonies can be categorized into four buckets assess champion communicate and survey there are more components of ocm but typically they can fall in one of these four buckets in the initial phases of a project stakeholders should conduct a readiness assessment which provide insights on things such as how do employees perceive their organization's approach for decision making how well does the organization able to set clear priorities for its employees you know the change history and how well people have accepted change in the past and then just general employee readiness to accept any change that may be coming around the organization all like very interesting and important metrics to collect that will impact how you should approach your change when you're implementing any technology whether it's servicenow or whatever it may be another important component is having changed champions and the change champions should be identified at appropriate levels of the organization that will advocate for the change as it comes and be leading the charge across the organization for their colleagues another aspect communication communication plans are created and utilized in an ongoing fashion and lastly surveys should be conducted frequently across all levels of the organization and these surveys will not only become a direct line to provide product enhancements and feature requests but also enable project management and pmo to identify those project risks like if i'm constantly getting a negative survey from two of the five stakeholders i know where to focus my ocm activities i know where to focus more effort to get those people's buy-ins understand why they are so negative about the change and it you know it's directly related to project risks i mean those two stakeholders would be major risk factors in the overall success of this project you're not ready to go until those stakeholders are satisfied and agree to the terms of using the new tool right exactly it allows project management and the ocm champions that you've identified to focus on and mitigate those risks proactively during an implementation and not after the fact i highly encourage my listeners to just rewind and listen to that whole thing again because the talk about ocm and the space thus far has really been focused around hey let's train the users and then maybe maybe if you're lucky leave a document behind you know what i mean that's that's really lucky yeah but that's still like aftercare the change meant organizational change management starts at the start of the project exactly i mean i'm right there with you i mean like this this is one of the biggest reasons why we're huge advocates at the most fundamental level there's two big hurdles when it comes to incorporating ocm i think the first one and probably more important than the other is just knowing what ocm is and then how valuable it is right and then second part is okay maybe now i semi understand what ocm is but how do i incorporate that into my project delivery and how do i help my customers and even my team understand why it's so important and because of that integrity pro is working on our latest custom app that will be available on the servicenow store in spring 2021 so keep an eye out the app will enable organizations to effectively manage all of their ocm activities from readiness assessments to communications plans to surveying for enhancements and project risks a lot of research has been going into this app and we're excited to provide it as a tool for not only end customers but other partners in the ecosystem as well buddy that sounds red-hot if you think about the scale of implementation costs or re-implementation costs these days it just seems like such a no-brainer to have an app in there that guides you through the implementation beyond just the project work breakdown structure exactly and then it's crazy we were in one of our brainstorming sessions we were like we're using servicenow to tell and guide and manage the ocm activities for potentially a servicenow implementation so it's like hey here's more about the product that we're implementing for your organization servicenow so but the ocm stuff is applicable to any ocm activity at the org right it's it's a tool for managing the work within ocm not just ocm on servicenow right that is correct yes a hospital system doing an epic upgrade could use this uh actually i could probably line you up a few customers because i just had still i had shoulder surgery i spent the last five months literally like managing that workflow on my own and every time i got my back was against the wall they'd tell me oh it's basically nothing we can do because the epic upgrade messed everything up and i'm like oh yeah that's no fun yeah and so you guys weren't ready for the change and the change was not managed well and guess who gets to pay the consequences for that me yeah your end customers so mateen is clear you got two passions they're both a difference in how you start the projects and in commitment to organizational change management concepts to make sure that this thing deploys as expected with strong adoption but to some extent one might say that's my team's thing how do you make that ipc's thing and not just you right because you're building this partner you got lots of consultants how do you make sure that they view the world the same way you do yeah absolutely and and it's extremely important for us as a company culture you know make sure that our viewpoints and our passions align so first and foremost we look for folks that align with our culture and i know that sounds really cliche but we really do we want to bring people onto the team that genuinely care about the customers genuinely care about their teammates and have a passion to do good and then we're screening folks for not only their tech skills but their consultability consultability i think i know what you mean there but tell us what you mean by consultability so like their soft skills their ability to communicate effectively with the customer and not being worried you know which person i need to put in front of the customer right like i should be able to any one of the consultants at ipc should be able to hold a very good conversation with the customer and not sign up for over customization not be a yes man so essentially we want to have well-rounded consultants that have their tech skills but they're also able to drive the functional conversations as well one thing i've noticed is that because servicenow is such an inspirational app you get these people who they've been bit by the bug they see all the potential locked up in service now and they can really blow up the size of a project right because they want to answer yes yeah they want yes yeah of course we can do that it's awesome yes fundamental project delivery concepts like project governance and scope creep and things like that should be something that every consultant is well versed in although we are passionate with our customers we're passionate about the solutions and the work that we do that doesn't mean we need to sign up for anything and everything right so there's a way to go about those things and every consultant shouldn't walk into a conversation and say yes we're going to sign up for everything do you look for seasoned consultants already or do you have a methodology of teaching people to be that way so initially being a startup it was extremely important for us to build out a core team of seasoned consultants and we're getting to the point now where we have the right mentorship and the right coaching in place for fresh new talent to come in with their tech skills with the passion to learn and the passion to do good and on ipc's cost bring them in nurture them cultivate a consultant out of them and coach them and mentor them and align them to be successful and then ipc is huge on training and education making sure everyone on the team has a knowledge and skills needed to be successful and since we strongly believe that proper ocm is critical to the success of any project we're investing in ocm certification for all of our delivery leads so wait a second you said you get them certified in ocm is there an actual certification for that yes there are a few well-known institutions that offer programs but we utilize prosci they offer a three-day change management certification which after you complete the course you become a certified change management practitioner not change management in the itil sense this is change management in the ocm sense right correct yeah there is a a full day dedicated to people first mentality people first organizational change management methods what kind of ceremonies and artifacts did somebody learn about in that program some of the ceremonies that would be covered in that program would be how to conduct a readiness assessment at an organization how to build a strong communication plan that is ongoing and actually hits the appropriate users how to become a changed champion and become an advocate for change within an organization and how to guide others to do the same thing those are just some but it's a great program and we're looking forward to making this investment with all of our folks here at ipc all right folks so there you have it ipc a team that believes in doing things different at the start of the project when they've put their money where their mouth is with their devnow application to help craft the journey of maturation on servicenow they're a team that believes strongly in organizational change management and are really committed to growing their team with organizational change management certifications so check them out links are going to be in the description below mateen thanks so much for being on the show thank you robert it's a it's a pleasure and honor to be here i appreciate it thanks bye thank you bye if you'd like to sponsor this channel's content email me at the address pictured here if you need a conversation on where your servicenow implementation is or where it's going you can reach me on super peers and book a short consult if you want to contribute to high quality high frequency output consider a donation if not i still appreciate your viewership consider hitting the like button and sharing within your network thanks for watching you