What's in this Success Playbook

This Success Playbook explains the effective methods and actions you should take to build a ServiceNow^® metrics program. You’ll find guidance on how to:

• Build consensus on the most important business outcomes and objectives that your key performance indicators (KPIs) should capture
• Limit your reporting to a small number of KPIs that best reflect the progress you’re making toward your business objectives
• Set usage targets that clearly articulate the adoption you need to get the most ServiceNow value
• Track diagnostic metrics that are both actionable and clearly identify the risks to your business outcomes
• Use playbooks that include the actions you can take to respond to any red flags your diagnostic metrics raise

Key takeaways

The most important things to know

When you use KPIs and metrics correctly, they help you be proactive rather than reactive, and they give you what you need to manage and accelerate progress on your ServiceNow roadmap. Ultimately, that means they bring you closer to your vision for transformation. To use KPIs and metrics successfully, you need:

• Clarity and simplicity in what you measure – Stay focused and avoid having metrics simply for the sake of having metrics.
• Clarity on what decisions or actions you need your KPIs to show – Avoid metrics that aren’t based on a decision or prompt action.
• Education – Train your leaders and teams so they understand how to incorporate metrics in their day-to-day work.

The payoff of getting this right

With the right KPIs and metrics in place, you can make implementation and management decisions that are focused on the business outcomes you want to achieve with ServiceNow. And because your governance teams can use KPIs and metrics to guide their decision-making and actions, they save time—and they can avoid a lot of unnecessary work. 

Steps covered

Step 1: Understand your business objectives    

• Build consensus on the most important business outcomes and objectives you want your KPIs to capture. 

Step 2: Define your KPIs    

• Stay focused! Limit your reporting to a small number of KPIs that best reflect progress against your business objectives.
• Set usage targets that clearly state the adoption you need to see value.

Step 3: Define your diagnostic metrics    

• Effective diagnostic metrics should be actionable and clearly identify any risks to your business outcomes.
• Build playbooks that provide actions you can use to respond to the red flags your diagnostic metrics raise.

Step 4: Continually improve your metrics tracking    

• Make a dedicated investment in metrics and analytics as part of your ServiceNow implementation.
• Work with your executive sponsor and other key stakeholders to improve your KPI and metrics reporting.

Step 5: Extend your use of metrics       

• Build a culture of metrics through training and messaging.