Almost every week this year I've seen questions about learning ServiceNow or rising through the ecosystem quickly. Today a thread by Frank Eck reminded me of the key tension that causes this question: should one go deep or go wide. As one who went wide, I have a definitive bias on this: unless you've been on platform for a decade, GO DEEP.

THE MATH IS AGAINST YOU

Those of us who got in early had the luxury of learning wide because we could invest small amounts of learning over long periods of time. For those who came later, how could you catch up on those hours? Especially when you're also putting in work to make you more competitive here and now. If you're maximizing for near term ascension, going DEEP is the best option.

I'm always surprised how much people think I know about ServiceNow in its entirety. I'll get questions about modules I've never seen before. But as wide as I've gone there some things I've deliberately not bothered with. I just know I'll never know enough about it to be useful in a consultative sense. CMDB for example. I've also never touched SecOps. Or mobile development. Or Natural Language processing. I've done exactly ONE thing in ServicePortal ever. Friends, I have a ServiceNow LIFESTYLE. I put in hours after hours because I'm obsessed. And after 12 years of that NOT EVEN I know even 3/4 of the platform at a consultative level.

There is no substitute for field experience. To have knowledge of a ServiceNow module is NOT the same as having the wisdom. Prior to my ITBM consults, I had knowledge, but only the consults provided the wisdom. Observe

Red area represents maximum knowledge of how a ServiceNow module works. Blue area represents "the market" / "the ecosystem" you might deploy the module.

There are places where you knowledge has no use in the ecosystem.

• Places where the product is built for fringe use cases (like skill requests in resource management)
• Where the product has experimental features the ecosystem hasn't yet explored
• Immature features (like time cards prior to New York's Time Card Days) OR where your understanding is immature. Your knowledge can't address gaps in the ecosystem.
• where clients most likely deviate from ServiceNow norms
• where there's unmet needs in the ecosystem (like baseline variance prior to Paris)
• where emerging trends are deviating from ServiceNow solutions Wisdom is understanding both the overlap and the gaps. It took me 1 year to get WISDOM on ITBM. I know I'll never have enough years to get the WISDOM on the entire breadth of the platform.

So to become elite, you must either reach deeper depths than your peers, or find ways to go as deep faster in order to go wide later.

The best way I know to get deep and attain knowledge quickest is to understand the WHY behind the module's deployment.

As a wise man once said, the people who buy 1/4 inch drill bits don't want drill bits, they want 1/4 inch HOLES. This is why no matter what techs or process areas you pick, its beneficial to have Performance Analytics and VividCharts as side specializations.

VividCharts is a storytelling interface to create vivid presentations for the Stakeholder Persona. The faster you satisfy the stakeholder personas, the more wisdom you achieve at the intersection of your knowledge and the market.

Get trial and certified on VividCharts today.

First, documenting your work is proven to improve your knowledge retention. But just as important, it increases your odds at customer success. But here's the real gem: if you store all your solution documentation, go back over it every version. Its a CHEAP and easy way to refresh you past (degrading) knowledge and learn new stuff in incremental units. AND you get a free excuse to reach out to your customers. (that last sentence has the potential to earn you hundreds of thousands of dollars... heed it well).

(As a side note, our ecosystem is in a humiliating place with respect to documentation. Get good at this and you will dominate)

Many people approach me with questions that I get them answers for. What they don't know is that often these answers don't come from my mind directly, but various places across my network. I *KNOW* there's a limit to the breadth of my knowledge of the platform. So there's areas I deliberately skip because my network is so strong. I surround myself with people like Nathan Firth, Jace Benson, Michael Bahr, Tim Woodruff, Travis Toulson, and other titans. Its faster to capitalize on their wisdom than achieve it on my own.

The world is your oyster, as they say. Not only are there massive process areas, but whole techs that are still starving for experts. PROCESSES: ITSM, ITBM (even subskills for APM and Agile), Hardware Asset Management, Software Asset Management, CMDB (subsets for Discovery and CSDM), Service Mapping, Event Management, Natural Language Understanding, Workspaces, Service Portal, HR, SecOps, GRC (with Compliance, Audit, Vendor, and Risk subsets), Virtual Agent, Flow Designer, Knowledge Management, Service Portfolio Management, Mobile Development, Custom App Development, Integrations, Automated Testing Framework.. and that's JUST off the top of my head.

Ponder this over a cup of delicious Groundshark Coffee.

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VICTORY through superior design and story telling friends.

I remain yours truly,

Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk