Migrate From Legacy Itsm To Servicenow
Migrate From Legacy Itsm To Servicenow
ServiceNow
Migrate from legacy ITSM to ServiceNow
Introduction
Migrating from legacy ITSM systems and processes to ServiceNow can be transformational and highly rewarding, so we want to make sure you succeed. This type of migration
provides an opportunity to improve ITSM processes—it’s not a lift-and-shift activity. Instead, it’s an opportunity to get rid of complexity in your current ITSM processes and
automate manual activities. As with any business transformation that involves both process and technical change, you definitely need proper planning and guidance. Here’s how to
get started.
This checklist will help you: prepare for migration, gain insight to the implementation process, avoid potential pitfalls, get recommendations to track value, and enjoy long-term
adoption. The recommended steps are informed by ServiceNow’s experience with thousands of legacy ITSM to ServiceNow migrations and through customer research.
In addition to the recommended activities and insights provided in this checklist, there are four requirements successful ServiceNow customers follow when they migrate from
legacy ITSM:
1. Engage early with everyone needed to support a successful migration: your executive sponsor(s), IT process owners, data owners, security, support staff, and process users.
2. Invest time upfront in design with process owners and users to make sure that you make the most of platform functionality in driving process improvements.
3. Apply a business-smart lens to customization, using out-of-the-box capabilities when possible. Limit customization and configuration to only validated business needs. Make
sure you fully understand the out-of-the-box capabilities before you decide to customize.
4. Work with a ServiceNow certified partner or ServiceNow Expert Services for ServiceNow process, technical, and implementation expertise for the best possible planning,
execution, and adoption. You’ll find varying models of support based on your organization’s maturity and preferences. We recommend that large enterprises use a combination of
certified partners and ServiceNow Expert Services resources. These roles are called “ServiceNow experts” in this checklist.
5. Follow the Now Create methodology to support your implementation.
Standard practices for the migration process from legacy ITSM to ServiceNow
A high-level list of actions for a legacy ITSM to ServiceNow migration (Complete this list with the assistance of a ServiceNow certified partner or ServiceNow Expert
Services.)
Lessons learned from previous ServiceNow implementations and suggestions to avoid common pitfalls through practitioner insights
• The action items in this checklist are intended for the implementation owner, who can be a primary business stakeholder, project manager, or other stakeholder who manages the
project management and decision-making processes. This person does not have to be a decision-maker but is responsible for ensuring decisions are made and executed.
• This checklist contains some activities that can be done in parallel (depending on your preference), so be sure you read it in its entirety before you plan.
• Standard migrations include these ServiceNow products: CMDB, Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Service Portal, Request/Catalog,
Knowledge Management, and the subcomponents of those products and processes. Your ITSM modernization efforts may involve additional or fewer ServiceNow products,
based on your individual business needs.
• Some customers may require adjustments to the recommended actions. If you have questions about whether adjustments may be needed for your migration, please consult a
ServiceNow certified partner or ServiceNow Expert Services prior to initiating migration.
Understand product features and functionality Assess your current state of readiness and initiate training
• In addition to the Customer Success Center, visit ServiceNow.com, • Identify the project management resources (including a dedicate project manager)
ServiceNow product docs and the Now Community site for detailed process and technical to support migration.
information. If you don’t find what you need here, the Now YouTube Channel and • Confirm your executive sponsor is committed and fully engaged.
Google are also great resources.
• Notify your internal security team and gather security requirements.
• Our resources for ServiceNow roadmaps and implementation and Now Create provide
implementation planning and execution details. • Request integration details of current ITSM solution from system owners
(including third parties) for all potentially impacted systems. This will be useful
• We recommend taking the ITSM related courses on Now Learning, depending on your during the design phase.
role. There are also short, free courses offered to get started.
• Identify business process owners for design and build activities. This will include
Define your vision, business objectives, and success metrics those who can provide full end-to-end ITSM (and related) process details for
Incident, Problem, Change, CMDB, Request (and Service Catalog), Portal, and
• Document your vision, business objectives, and success metrics, and to ensure your
any business processes related to your scope. They should also have the authority
vision cascade into clear and measurable business outcomes. See slides 17-18
to make decisions for process optimization changes.
for example outcomes. You will want to include your executive sponsor in this process.
• Identify internal technical owners for platform administration and support.
Technical team members who will be involved in implementation and post go-live
maintenance should complete the ServiceNow Fundamentals training prior to
design. We also recommend the ITSM product training. Make sure that your
system administrators and developers access Now Learning and Now Creators for
continued skill development.
• This meeting introduces implementation participants and stakeholders and initiates Practitioner insight: Your executive sponsor can simplify governance and expectations
the implementation process. by articulating “golden rules” for the migration project. The golden rules should be short,
• Include all relevant stakeholders and project team members (including partners and concrete, and memorable statements that clarify both where decisions have been made
ServiceNow staff). Your executive sponsor should: and expectations need to be set for everyone involved. Examples might include:
– Reiterate the business purpose and objectives of the migration project.
“We will design and build using out-of-the-box functionality. We will customize only
– Reinforce your governance model for the project, including explicit definition of where there is a clear business need and no alternative.”
how decisions will be made.
– Define expectations and requirements for all stakeholders and team members
“Integrations will be limited to those needed to deliver value only.”
involved in the project.
• Your partner or ServiceNow engagement manager should: You should have no more than 8–12 golden rules in total, to ensure their absorption by
– Introduce the partner and ServiceNow delivery team members. everyone involved. Focus them on the most important principles that should guide your
– Walk through the implementation approach and project plan. migration project.
Practitioner insight: Help your executive sponsor(s) stay engaged at each stage Practitioner insight: Participants and stakeholders in your governance structure should
of your implementation, not just at the start and end. Your executive sponsor can have a shared, aligned understanding of your business objectives for ServiceNow. Contact
play a critical role in driving your implementation vision and resolving your Account Executive to discuss the role that our Customer Success resources can play
organizational roadblocks. For more detail, see our executive sponsor resources. in driving effective business alignment.
• Document and review stories from your implementation workshop with business process owners. Document business process owners’ approval and agreement that the stories
correctly represent the design agreed to in the implementation workshop.
• Prioritize approved stories based on their contribution to your business objectives and available capacity. Prioritization should be approved by the migration governance
committee established in Step 2.
• Assign prioritized stories to defined development sprints. Each sprint should have a defined outcome (e.g., implement the core incident management process) and ideally last
two weeks. Ensure that you include the following at the end of each sprint:
– The process owner should demo functionality that has been built, to test the desired outcome and allow for any necessary corrections.
– Your developers should conduct unit tests for each story, ideally using ServiceNow’s Automated Test Framework. Also work with ServiceNow Expert Services to run a
sprint scan through HealthScan to ensure that development has aligned to best practices.
– Your developers should report on story completion and test results to your technical governance subcommittee, especially to surface any technical obstacles that may affect
additional development.
Phase 3 – Use machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate and reduce the
cost of ITSM processes driving service intelligence. Prevent IT’s performance from
stagnating through continual improvement.
Don’t wait to develop a roadmap that incorporates all three of these phases—make
sure it’s in place before you complete Phase 1.
• Ideally, break your training up into modules so process users can focus on the • Capture and promote quick wins to demonstrate early success. Identify functionality or
processes most relevant to their day-to-day work. features that have wide visibility among process users and end-users that are within
scope for implementation. Promote these to drive wider interest in and adoption of
ServiceNow.
• Identify the ServiceNow champions among your process users who can promote quick
wins and influence adoption among peers.
Practitioner insight: Problem records and knowledge articles are the only records you
may have to import into ServiceNow, since they are likely to have a longer lifespan and
are not necessarily being worked to closure. Analyze and clean these records before you
import them.
Identify KPIs and diagnostic metrics Build playbooks to act on diagnostic metrics
• In their kickoff agendas, your strategic, portfolio, and technical governance functions • Set thresholds for risk in your diagnostic metrics that will trigger a response.
should include the definitions of relevant KPIs that measure progress toward • Work with your process and service owners so you have the right diagnostic metrics
objectives and diagnostic metrics to identify any risks to progress.
and to develop playbooks.
– Establish a clear line of sight from the business objectives to KPIs and metrics
created at the portfolio and technical level. For example, implementing a specific
product or feature may represent a KPI at a technical level, which should roll up to Build dashboards to visualize progress, and support clear decision-making
a KPI for value realization at a strategic level. • Create dashboards using the dashboard requirements from your ServiceNow platform
– Focus your reporting and communications on a small number of KPIs that best owner, service owners, process owners, and executive sponsor and/or senior leaders,
reflect your progress against the objectives and include usage and adoption targets. established in Step 2.
– Make sure your diagnostic metrics are actionable. For more information on KPIs • Review how the various workspaces can be used to support performance assessment
and diagnostic metrics, see our resources on
performance measurement and analytics.
Practitioner insight: Determine your dashboard requirements before or during the design
– Success Playbook. phase to ensure the data required to create desired dashboards is included in the technical
design.
Practitioner insight: you should begin planning for your metrics program at least 2–3
months before your go-live. You can also use Performance Analytics to support your
Practitioner insight: When identifying KPIs, be careful when making comparisons to
metrics program.
KPIs associated with your legacy system. It’s likely when implementing ServiceNow that
you’ve changed your core ITSM processes as well as your system, so you may be
comparing different process models. See our resources on
performance measurement and analytics for more detail.
16 © 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Example: Business objectives
Revenue growth Cost reduction Risk mitigation
Increase employee productivity Optimize operational efficiency Ensure regulatory and legal compliance
Deliver great employee experiences and shift Reduce the friction created by siloed information and Improve internal controls, auditability, and
investments from run the business to grow and processes and proactively improve performance and documentation.
transform the business. reliability.
This objective’s primary intent: This objective’s primary intent: This objective’s primary intent:
Create effortless employee experiences that lead to Reduce the cost of service operations without Reduce the various forms of risk that can adversely
sustained and increased productivity and that free up sacrificing service quality (always a balancing act). impact an organization (primarily legal, regulatory,
resources to move the enterprise forward faster. The key focus is to simplify and automate safety, and reputational risk).
transactions.
You can monetize this in numerous ways:
• Headcount reduction
• Scaling to support growth (hiring avoidance)
• Non-replacement after attrition
• Retooling/repurposing employees (ideally to fill
pre-existing, already budgeted job requisitions)
1. Allow employees to 4. Allow agents and 7. Reduce repetitive, 12. Identify trending 1. Reduce change-related risk and cost.
get access to all employees to work routine work. requests/incidents.
services from a single jointly to resolve
location. incidents/requests. 8. Route the right work to 13. Accurately measure
the right person. performance.
2. Empower employees to 5. Keep employees
work from any device. informed.
9. Enable visibility to 14. Get control of your
6. Deliver standardized prioritize work and hardware assets.
3. Enable employees to and effective IT monitor performance
help themselves. services. against service level 15. Give agents a single
agreements place to do their work.
(OLAs/SLAs).
16. Intelligently fix
10. Orchestrate disparate problems before
internal teams for root employees know they
cause resolution. have them (or at least
notify them
proactively).
11. Give agents the
necessary employee
and internal
information.
18 © 2021 ServiceNow, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Example data tables for migration
These are example data tables and types that you can consider for migration from a legacy system. Before any migration, review them for completeness and accuracy.
Name Description
Cost Center Cost centers related to departments
Locations and Departments Used in user records and for functions such as stock rooms
Assignment Group Used in ITSM processes to assign packages of work (e.g., incidents, changes)
Incident Categories/Subcategories Hierarchical list of categories used to assist incident routing
Incident Impact and Urgency Impact and Urgency values used to determine Priority
CMDB Hierarchical class-based structure to manage configuration items
Change Categories List of categories used to assist determining change type
Change Templates Templates to simplify the process of submitting new records by populating fields automatically
Knowledge Articles Knowledge articles are often in multiple repositories that need to be migrated to ServiceNow
SLA definitions SLA definitions typically exist in legacy systems and can be migrated
Strategic
Best practice insights
from customers, partners,
Critical and ServiceNow teams
processes
Practical Actionable
Expert
Management insights Technical Based on thousands of
successful implementations
Common across the globe
pitfalls and
challenges