Last week I sent an email about a project exhibiting all the red flags (strongly recommend reading). Before thinking that was a failure analysis, I want you to know the project is viewed as a success, and on trajectory to further success. While it wasn't easy, it was put back on track QUICKLY with one conversation. Lets observe the success shaping power of Performance Analytics.

My friend called me on a Thursday. She was presenting "state of ServiceNow" 30 days post-go-live to her peers. Here were the conditions on the ground - Everyone concerned with "how do I manage the work for everything that reports up to me" - Several peers wanted the migration to ServiceNow to fail - Legacy system reported out of Qlik. A screen full of filtering options so they could "drill down to the tickets I want to see" - Absolute zero focus on indicators. Every report was an attempt to get to "those few tickets' that may be causing a problem. - Expectation to see something finished, not something proposed. - Heavy expectation to see "the work that needs doing".

SCRAMBLE

Set up was bad enough after the implementation they had, but now only 1 week to turn the narrative around. The path I sent their dev on was: - Create Dashboard with counts of task types they used. Get us breathing room with the "this isn't what we're used to" crowd. - Create a hyperlink above each count linking to a multi-tab "analysis" dashboard for each process area. - Leverage OOB PA dashboards for analysis.

- Use the amazing PA Configuration Generator to build out indicators, breakdowns, & dashboard for sc_task

- Tell a story of how outcome based reporting saves time & energy.

With a passable PA implementation performed in under 1 week, it was time to win over the stakeholders. Remember from my story telling article... we had to make them the heros, and pack in the emotional intensity. Here's the flow of the presentation.

1) Establish A Problem: Processes Aren't Natural

Processes exist ONLY to provide some kind of outcome uniformity. They take energy to build *AND* maintain. So if you don't know what the outcomes of your process should be, you're wasting energy.

Further Learning: CJ&TheDuke - 006 - What's Up With Reporting (3 minute mark)

2) The Reasons People Report on Anything

This was critical since this client was only used to managing work and mining insights. They had no exposure to outcome management.

Further Learning: Mailing List - The Five Purposes of Reporting.

3) Take them from here/now to a better future - JUST WITH PERFORMANCE ANALYTICS

After months of a vendor talking about feature minutiae I refused to talk features. I talked only about outcome based reporting and moving the needle on measures that mattered.

... and dared them to dream

4) Show where time savings come fromHere you are today: Is this good or bad? We don't know Here's your past performance: Is this good or bad? We still don't know Here's your target/threshold: Is this good or bad? NOW we know. When will we meet/hit our target/threshold: Forecasting tells us. With two metrics that matter, which do you pour energy into? This is where their old paradigms were replaced with superior ones. They could now see outcome based reporting removes their necessity to "query and explore". We already know outcomes we want and don't want, so we look at the outcome reports. We then apply energy to those are are farthest away / trending away from our goals and thresholds.

5) Live Demo with Production Data

Nothing drives the new reporting paradigms home like a live demo, which is why I LOVE how Performance Analytics is packaged with excellent indicators and dashboards OOB. It took us less than a week (approx 10 hours) to set up something passable. Once in the live demo, conversation swiftly changed from "how does it work to" to "woah! We need to improve our time between updates!"

SO!

If you ever doubt the power/value of ServiceNow Performance Analytics, just imagine *any other context* where a 60 minute presentation can change ServiceNow skeptics into process performance hunters. You can powerfully reverse the optics on trainwreck implementations and start actually moving the needle!

As outcome focus on reporting matures, I'll increase awareness of The 3 Reporting Personas. Inevitably, outcome data is more mobile. We want to tell our peers, customers, and leaders where performance is solid or lacking. We want to spend our resources more wisely. But telling the story to stakeholders often means exporting tons of data off platform. ServiceNow provides excellent interfaces for Operators and Analysts, but the storytelling needed for stakeholders gets a massive boost from VividCharts. Imagine... this level of aesthetic control, deployed on ServiceNow, so 100% data reliability is assured.

WE INVITE YOU TO EXPERIENCE VIVIDCHARTS

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VICTORY through superior design and story telling friends.

I remain yours truly,

Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk