welcome to establish ServiceNow governance part of our best practices series in this video you'll learn what ServiceNow governance means and why it's worth investing in you'll also learn three key steps to help you get started with governance and you'll leave this video armed with a list of actions you should take to establish governance at your organization let's start by defining governance governance is the definition of how decisions are made and applied to accelerate outcomes with ServiceNow specifically governance is about detailing what decisions need to be made and when who needs to be involved in decision making and the processes and activities used to make decisions so why should you invest in governance governance is critical to making sure that ServiceNow investments align to your broader strategy governance provides clear direction that your teams need to focus on the right work and to get it done faster and finally governance is key to reducing technical risk and maintaining platform integrity ServiceNow recommends three steps to establish governance at your organization start by preparing what you need to set up governance then define how governance will work at your organization finally continuously improve your governance approach let's take a look at each of these starting with step 1 it's important to start by designating someone to design and implement your governance approach we found that the platform owner is best positioned to define the scope and goals to create a plan and to identify the right stakeholders this preparation is crucial to setting up effective governance the second step is defining your governance process you'll need to answer many questions as you implement and manage ServiceNow these questions will come from different stakeholders and are related to different topics strategic technical or tactical the point of governance is to bring structure and clarity to these questions we recommend a governance model with three boards each with the authority and expertise to add these different types of questions an executive steering board with senior IT and business leaders addresses strategy questions this group decides on the strategic vision for ServiceNow overseas budget and resources and makes final decisions on the overall ServiceNow roadmap a demand board with platform and process owners addresses portfolio questions this group besides how to scope work and creates a roadmap that aligns with the vision set by your executive steering board a technical governance board with IT leaders and architects addresses technical questions this group sets standards and guardrails for development on the now platform which minimize technical risk to be effective these groups can't act in silos while the model assigns accountability for certain outcomes to specific groups the combined outcomes should form one cohesive set of guidance this requires the groups to work together and share information so they aren't making decisions in isolation remember that it will take time to fine-tune the working rhythm across boards setting up governance isn't a one and done activity you should continuously improve how decisions are made at your organization to do this define metrics that will tell you whether governance is working or not then analyze your metrics to continuously drive process improvement and remove bottlenecks lastly triage decisions that require the attention of your governance boards strive to push all but the most important decisions to your front lines there are three insights we want you to remember from this video first governance is about accelerating decisions and outcomes effective governance clarifies who makes decisions how they get made and what outcomes they should deliver second start by defining how strategic decisions are made technical standards and policies are important but you need to make sure that they are informed by strategy finally avoid over governing which can slow you down when you've set up governance continuously evaluate how and where you can improve and simplify your approach to decision making so what should you do next first review the success playbook and checklist on the customer success center these will provide more details on how to establish ServiceNow governance next discuss governance with your platform owner and executive sponsor convey why governance is important and worth investing in lastly create a plan to establish governance at your organization for more information or advice contact your service now team thank you for watching