Hello and welcome   to the Cask Distillery Podcast once again, where 
we unlock the full potential of ServiceNow with   expert insights and practical strategies, 
only here on the Cask Distillery Podcast.  And with me today I have a very 
special guest: Adam Follmer. And   he is a platform owner at a large firm.
Thank you so much, Adam, for coming on and   taking time with us today. We’re recording this 
on a Monday. I really appreciate it: coming in   off of the weekend. So thank you. I would love 
for you to introduce yourself and tell us a   little bit about the organization you work for, 
just to frame who you are and where you’re at.  Good morning, Sean, 
by the way. Happy Monday.  I’m Adam Follmer. I’m the platform owner for a 
mid-level or mid-sized law firm. We’re a global   firm. We have 19 offices worldwide. I’ve 
been with the firm for 18 years. I’ve done   everything from general IT support to now 
being the platform manager for ServiceNow.  And how long has the organization 
been on ServiceNow, and what did the   initial implementation look like?
We’ve been on the platform for   four years now, going on five years. We took 
probably a little bit of a different path   where we rolled out CSM first, and then 
we rolled out IT. So it was a little bit   of a different route than most conventional 
companies probably take to launch ServiceNow.  What did moving on to ITSM actually 
look like? And I know you did CSM. I guess   that would be a good question too. What 
was the business case for CSM at first   then ITSM? Because it’s typical that you 
do ITSM first and then you start expanding.   What was it about CSM that really drove that?
There are a couple things actually   happening there. The organization actually had 
a different ticketing system that we had started   working on prior to owning ServiceNow. So, for 
the better part of a year, we built out a couple   of those CSM groups on the other ticketing 
system. Ultimately, it did not work out,   and we ended up moving to ServiceNow.
We found it easier to actually start with   CSM because we had already gone through all of the 
exercises needed to bring a team on the platform.   We’d already done all the requirements. 
We knew what they wanted. So it was very   easy to bring that group on. And IT was still 
living on our “older older” ticketing system.   So it just made a little more sense to get 
that group brought over because of the work   that we had already put into that team.
Yeah, that makes sense. Talking   about the whole platform, what does 
the ServiceNow look like now today—or   the program look like today—at your organization?
Adam: We are a full enterprise shop. We obviously   have CSM. We have ITSM. We just recently 
released a process around major incident   management. That was a very big exciting thing for 
the IT department. We’ve got ITOM. We’ve got ITAM,   including SAM Pro. We have demand management. 
We have a lot of things cooking in a lot of   different departments. And then, in our CSM 
department, we probably have maybe seven or   eight different groups that are leveraging 
that module today. So, a lot of folks:   over 500 users (or fulfillers, it will say).
Sean: You’ve got quite a few groups on there. Now,   looking at that whole program—with CSM, ITSM, MIM 
(or major incident management), ITOM, SAM P—that   sounds like, over the past two years, you’ve had 
a lot of change and adaptation for that team.   What are some of the factors that have helped you 
guys to start seeing more success with a platform   when you’re dealing with all that change?
I’m going to go back a little bit in   history because this will help paint the picture. 
I think there was an initial question around ITSM   and what that looked like. At the time—let’s go 
back four years—we had a team of three people:   myself, an architect, and a developer. We didn’t 
have any BAs. We didn’t have any admins. We rolled   out ITSM in six months. It was a very aggressive 
timeline, and we took ITSM mostly out of the box.  There were challenges in that alone. There were 
challenges in getting our business process set up.   Who owned that? There were ownership challenges. 
The catalog items that we were bringing to the   platform were very basic catalog items. And very 
little iteration. Folks were not really willing   to see a bigger picture. What that meant was that 
we were doing these very large waterfall releases,   were trying to attain perfection, and really 
just not take things in smaller bites.  Let’s fast forward two years to the question 
about the past two years. What we’ve changed:   We’ve really gotten top-down alignment 
throughout the organization. That is so   incredibly critical to the success to have all of 
the stakeholders and all the groups marching in   the same direction toward the same goal. We’ve 
increased our staff, surprisingly. Surprise,   surprise. I have five team members on my team 
now. We have three developers, business analysts,   admin. And then we contracted with Cask. 
So we have a large contingent of contract   workers that are helping us work through some of 
these primary work streams for the organization.  A few other factors is that part of the 
result of working with Cask is that we   have better prioritization. We have quarterly 
planning sessions, and everybody is aligned   with what is going to be worked on. And the 
timelines are defined. And we just have a   better outlook of the work in front of us.
And then another big key component over the   last two years is that we have started working 
in Agile. We are taking smaller iterations of   work. We are not holding on to an enhancement for 
months to try and perfect it. We take small chunks   and break it up and iterate through the process. 
And that has helped us immensely to be able to not   only feel like we are accomplishing our own 
goals and trying to get work done, but also   being able to release things to the organization 
and then improve upon them in a timely manner.  That’s great. I want to dig in just a 
tiny bit because this is like a rabbit hole.   You mentioned going from like the waterfall or 
traditional release type schedule or project   management. Was it difficult or was it 
challenging to get the organization to   move from that kind of a mode to agile?
I would say no. And the reason I   say that is because part of this growth of the 
organization was bringing us to the table and   finding what was important to us. Early on in our 
planning sessions, we would list all these things   we really have to do. “We need to do CMDB” 
and “We need to do harder asset management.”  And then also one of those privatizations was 
Agile. I can remember at one of our meetings,   the—I don’t know if I would call them the steering 
committee, but our leadership was honed in on   working on CMDB first. During that meeting, I 
actually spoke up and said, “If we want things   to be better, we should focus on Agile first.”
At the time, we were using a continual improvement   module to do all of our enhancement right, which 
did not really lend ourselves to working in   smaller chunks. We would have these big stories, 
and it would take months to get through the whole   story. And it wasn’t broken down. It was this 
big thing. And each story was a big thing.   When we made the move to Agile, we immediately saw 
improvement with our development cycles. It almost   seemed easy to us. It kind of came natural, 
even though none of my team had used Agile   before to do their work. Adopting that framework 
really helped us accelerate, track, prioritize,   and break things down into smaller pieces.
Eventually, the IT department as a whole   adopted Agile or their ways to track their work 
and their project work. We were kind of the first   folks that brought Agile into ServiceNow. And 
now almost every IT group in the department uses   Agile to improve their way of work. We actually 
have a “way of working” team that onboards that   group through the journey.
Thanks for   expanding on that. That’s awesome.
You mentioned something earlier that just   really struck a chord with me, honestly, as you 
were talking about the fact that you’ve got people   who didn’t know process—or the organization didn’t 
know processes—when you were implementing certain   things. And I find that a lot of people typically 
think they can turn things on and just go with it.  We call it “people process technology.” I know 
you’ve heard this because you work with us,   but that’s so huge because you don’t 
just turn stuff like this on. You’ve   got to think about it a little more. It’s 
not just a click-and-go and you’re taking   tickets. But I love that side of the story.
I wanted to talk about vision, because you’ve   got a lot of stuff going on here. I’m kind of 
curious. How have you gone about actually defining   and sharing your vision within the organization 
as you’re bringing in these new ideas and new   products? What does that look like for you?
We’re very much kind of taking what   the organization is giving us, in a sense that 
we’re letting the organization sort of define the   vision a little bit. What I mean by that is that 
different groups have different priorities. And   we build those priorities into the mission, so to 
say. What I will say is, kind of touching back on   what I discussed, the important part was getting 
involved and being engaged with the organization   to be able to steer your vision—also, while 
trying to get the organization what they want.  So that’s kind of where that discussion about 
Agile came into play. We wanted to change the   way we developed. We needed to change the way 
we developed. So part of our vision was to find   a way to improve that. By working with the 
organization and sitting down and discussing   why it was important, we were then able to 
bring that into the organization’s vision.  It’s a give-and-take. But being at the table 
and being confident to be able to speak up and   know where you want to go, but also know where the 
organization wants to go, it’s pretty important.  Great. So talk to us a little 
bit about the pace of change and how   the culture impacts that from your viewpoint.
We have four or five primary workstreams   going on right now. We’re moving very fast. The 
change within the platform is monthly, sometimes   biweekly. We are doing big releases all the time. 
Change is hard. Change is hard. I know everybody   has said that. It is true. The organization so 
far, the culture so far—again, with top-down   alignment—has been open to that change.
Four years ago, folks saw ServiceNow as   something that’s going to change your job, or 
it was just something that was unknown to them,   and they didn’t know where we were going. But 
today, there’s still bumps in the road. But the   importance of organizational change management and 
having teams engaged with the pace of change kind   of softens the blow, if you will, or makes 
that change easier. Folks know that we are   changing fast. And so far, they’re open to it.
That’s great. So you hit on something   with organizational change management that’s 
great: always thinking about how it’s going to   impact/who it’s going to impact, and getting that 
out early to help ease the doubts, ease the fears,   and getting to change faster. I love it.
What does platform governance look like   for your organization now, today, with all the 
things going on there? What does that look like?  Platform governance is and always will be 
a work in progress. Today, that is definitely,   probably an area of weakness for us. And 
that can be attributed to the pace/the   removing. Some of that stuff’s not always 
the prettiest stuff to work on, but it’s   incredibly important. We certainly have a set of 
standards that we use for our development, right?  But what I will say is that it’ll be an area 
of focus for us as we try to expand beyond our   team developing. What that really means is one 
of the goals we’re looking at this year is to   try and build out a citizen developer program 
and using App Engine. But in order to do that,   you have to have some sort of governance in place. 
So we’re not just handing the keys to the castle   over and allowing for controlled chaos.
Platform governance is something that we   are definitely going to focus on more the rest of 
this year to be able to allow ourselves to open up   capabilities for others on the platform.
That’s great.  So what’s next? What’s next for Adam 
and your organization and ServiceNow?   What’s the next big thing or thought?
What isn’t next? That’s the real   question here. What isn’t next? For the next six 
months, I think our focus is really going to be   about creating a portal, onboarding more 
departments, looking at process binding,   starting to build that citizen developer 
program and learning about App Engine. And   then we’re also looking at governance risk and 
compliance. Those are some of the big things.  What happens after that is anybody’s guess. I know 
we have this laundry list of—you call it the “plus   plus list.” That just has darn near everything 
under the sun that can relate to ServiceNow. We’re   super excited about what the future’s going to 
bring and the new technologies that we’re going   to be able to develop on in web form.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve   learned in your ServiceNow journey?
No pun intended here, but it’s   a marathon—it’s not a sprint (even though we 
work in sprints). The journey here is long,   and it can always change. That’s kind of the 
beauty of the platform is that it is designed to   change. As long as you know that and you’re able 
to adapt to that change or make change happen,   then things are going to be fine.
The important thing is getting folks   engaged—making sure they are part of that journey. 
Early on, folks were not engaged. They saw it as   more work, and they didn’t really see the full 
potential. It was a little rough in those first   two years, I will admit. We were trying to 
attain perfection. We were not iterating.   It was hard. But once we got past that and 
got folks to understand that “We’re here,   we’re not going anywhere, we’re going to 
continually change.” things have gotten easier.  Last question for you today is 
what’s important to you that you would   like to share with others in your shoes for 
those that are watching or listening to this?  I’m going to keep hammering this message. 
Getting top-down alignment from your organization   is critical. You are working with your peers. You 
don’t always have to be able to get folks to do   what needs to be done. That’s where, again, 
having top-down alignment from your CIO down   to your directors and your managers—everybody 
understanding what the goals are—is critical.  And then again, getting your stakeholders 
engaged in the process, making them own their   process. I know that’s probably something that 
a lot of folks don’t do, at least acknowledge.   It sounded like that was a new and interesting 
way to work, to have people own their process.   But it’s 100% necessary. I don’t know all 
of my department’s processes. They have to   own that. And then they can own their change.
Engagement, ownership, alignment. Those are the   critical things that are going to make platform 
owners and your development teams’ lives easier,   because they can then just focus on what 
they do best and not necessarily have to   understand the intricacies of people’s 
work—just how to make it work for them.  Great. Well, Adam, that’s it for 
today. Thank you so much for taking time   out of your Monday. As I said earlier, 
we really, really, really appreciate it.  No problem. It was fun.
So for those listening and watching,   thank you for taking time out of your day 
to listen and watch what we’re producing   for you. So please like and share and let 
us know in the comments if you would like   to see anything else or what you would like to 
see. For now, take care. Have a good one. Bye.