When it comes to successfully implementing ServiceNow, vision is everything.
Just ask Jeff Spaude, senior vice president of IT at Learning Care Group (LCG), the second-largest childcare provider in North America and a provider of employer-sponsored solutions. When LCG first implemented ServiceNow in 2013 (then on its Calgary version), it was primarily for IT purposes. Since then, LCG’s use of ServiceNow has expanded to keep pace with the company’s needs and changing vision. “We see ServiceNow much more of an enabler of business across LCG,” Jeff says. “And it really has become a critical tool for us across the enterprise.”
In this episode of The Distillery Podcast, Jeff sat with Sean Dawson to discuss LCG’s ServiceNow journey and the lessons he’s learned along the way. Three of those lessons are all about vision and getting your people aligned.
Start with “why?”
As an enterprise, LCG has a simple vision: to have a positive impact on every child it serves as well as their families, its teachers, and the communities in which it operates. That overall vision serves as a filter for every department to view its work and purpose. What can this department do to serve the overall company vision?
“As we define the vision for ServiceNow and how it enables our business, we started by really talking about what the problem was that we were trying to solve,” Jeff says. “And then more importantly, why. Why are we trying to solve it? And those two things allow for us to get pretty good executive alignment.”
Asking “why?” is by no means a new concept—but it is crucial to gaining that essential executive buy-in. “I think we’re really successful in that because we know what we’re trying to solve and why we’re trying to do that,” Jeff says. “And then we work really hard to get that executive alignment. If we don’t have it, we don’t move forward.”
Practice your elevator pitch
How many times has this happened to you? You find yourself in the elevator with your company’s CEO. Twenty seconds, max. To fill the air, the CEO turns to you and asks, “Tell me about ServiceNow. What’s it all about?”
It’s really just a hypothetical, but it’s an important one. And if you’re the senior vice president of IT like Jeff is, you’d probably have no problem rattling off an answer to satisfy your CEO’s hypothetical inquiry and show how your ServiceNow vision relates to your company’s overall goals. But does the same go for every member of your team?
Challenge your team members to formulate their own elevator pitch. “We practiced the 20 seconds [pitch],” Jeff says. “What is the vision? How do you describe it in 20 seconds? And whether that’s one of our developers or one of our leaders in the organization, . . . cascading that vision down and practicing those things makes that vision real.” It’s similar to the concept of “learning by teaching,” only instead of learning the vision, your team is aligning with it.
Go slow to go fast
When you start out with ServiceNow, it’s easy to get caught up in all of the features and functions now available to you. From a vision perspective, it’s also easy to get ahead yourself by talking about all of the wonderful things you’re going to achieve with the platform, with some executive buzzwords thrown in haphazardly. “We’re going to add every support function!” “We’re going to have all self-service tools running day 1!”
But when that initial frenzy inevitably gives way to slow down as you get accustomed to the platform, what you’ll have instead is frustration and, ultimately, dissatisfaction with your investment—all because your ServiceNow implementation didn’t immediately deliver on your lofty promises. Remember, first impressions matter, whether you’re meeting a client for the first time or launching a new implementation.
Jeff calls this the biggest lesson of his ServiceNow journey: Go slow to go fast.
“We wanted to make sure that when our folks think about this new experience, that that first experience is great or at least good, right, and then gets better and better,” he says. “So we were deliberate about going a little slow at the beginning so that we could go faster. . . . Early on, we got really great user feedback. We established some qualitative/quantitative metrics that we were looking at that allowed us to make some real improvements.”
He adds, “When people can see it, and they can feel it, and they can touch it, and they can experience it and give feedback, it makes that vision more real, and it gets people excited for more.”
We’re with you for what comes next
You're working in a rapidly shifting environment.
Global dynamics, AI advancements, heavy competition–the only certainty is change.
We get it. And we’re here to help you harness the full potential of ServiceNow to simplify transformation.
Let's navigate the future together.
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We’re with you for what comes next
You're working in a rapidly shifting environment.
Global dynamics, AI advancements, heavy competition–the only certainty is change.
We get it. And we’re here to help you harness the full potential of ServiceNow to simplify transformation.
Let's navigate the future together.
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