welcome to business smart customization part of our best practices series in this video you'll learn about what business smart customization means and why it's important you'll learn how you can develop business smart approaches to customization in your organization and you'll leave this video armed with a list of actions and practical resources to help you put business smart customization into practice for the purpose of this video customization refers to business demands for custom functionality this definition includes configuration use of capabilities and/or features on the nail platform that enable you to deliver against custom business demands in a safe and supported way like modifications to forms or table extensions this should always be your first choice for customization our definition also includes custom development development of both ServiceNow applications as well as new applications by changing baseline business rules or developing new applications from table extensions this is only recommended when configuration can't meet business demands business smart customization is a management approach that applies rigorous value and risk criteria to new requests for customization it helps you define when customization is really needed and should be approved to deliver business value business smart customization is essential to good governance it helps you establish a consistent approach to demand management and ensures you can run your nail platform effectively so why is business smart customization important customization can be a powerful tool in delivering business value and a business smart approach helps you decide whether the value is worth the risk with smart guardrails you can scale development across multiple teams while controlling technical debt in turn smart customization makes upgrades easy and helps manage platform performance business smart customization is an integral part of several ServiceNow processes and practices three such critical processes are managing application development on the nail platform managing upgrades and building service governance each of these processes relies on defined guidelines for business smart customization to understand how customization works with these processes check out our resources on these topics available on ServiceNow customer success center now let's break down what business smart customization means business smart customization comes down to a simple formula first you need to define the business value of a proposed customization request through a business value score second you need to define the technical risk associated with a proposed customization request through a complexity score with these two scores in place you can determine if the business value of a proposed customization request outweighs its potential complexity and risk let's look at each of these steps in detail first let's define a business value scoring framework start with a simple one to five framework or low medium high next define the criteria for each score using concrete language or examples for example a score of five might be reserved for demands or customization is a must-have to meet regulatory requirements for instance where a workflow contains regulated data a score of three might be assigned to a demand where customization could improve adoption among a new user group for example because you've customized a form to match their unique business process but there are alternatives you could look at instead of customizing your scoring should be very clear to help requesters understand that customization requests need to be tied to clear defined business outcomes next lists out common customization scenarios and define a complexity score for each our resources contains a complete list that you can use to save time define a simple scoring framework across these scenarios using a low medium high or one to five score as you did for business value low scores should be assigned to simple configurations while high scores should be reserved for scenarios that may have complex effects like changes to baseline business rules next we're going to bring our business value and complexity scores together to make a decision you can decide in advance the business value score you need to see to approve a customization request with an assigned complexity score essentially you need to define where business value outweighs technical risk effectively defining a threshold for business value that you need to see to approve a demand for customization if you establish these criteria you can ensure a consistent objective approach to using customization words business smart to do so let's discuss how you should put the system into place start with your technical governance team define common customization scenarios and assign a simple complexity score to each next work with your demand board or demand management function define simple business value scores for customization requests and thresholds for approving new customization requests finally remember that this shouldn't be static prior to each upgrade go back and audit your current customizations to see if they meet the thresholds you've established for business value you can check things like usage data to assess if they're really delivering business value if not take steps to deprecate them and reduce your technical debt there are three insights we want you to remember from this video first remember that customization is always a business decision second this means that you should evaluate customization requests in terms of business value and risk as measured through technical complexity your demand board should use consistent objective criteria for this evaluation and finally regularly audit your existing customizations to determine if they're delivering business value governing customization is a foundational step to scale development on the now platform without taking undue technical risks so what should you do next first take time to review the resources we have on the customer Success Center these materials will give you more details and insights from experts on business smart customization second take what you've learned and have a discussion with your demand board and technical governance function finally put strategies in place to measure and remove customization that isn't meeting business smart criteria especially before your next upgrade our customer success center can provide you with proven strategies and tactics to put this into practice for more information or advice contact your service now team thank you for watching