[Music] Hello everyone! Welcome to The 
Cask Distillery podcast where we unlock   the full potential of ServiceNow with expert 
insights and practical strategies only here on   the Cask Distillery podcast and I have with me 
a very special guest Stacey Fournier-Thibodaux   and Stacey has had an extensive background it's 
actually so extensive I've got to read my list   here because there's a lot here and I want to make 
sure we get as much value out of this as we can.   So she comes with a 20-year background in Service 
Management, ITIL Master Certified, is one of the   first visionary ServiceNow platform owners, owned 
and grew one of the most successful Platforms   in the ecosystem over 10 years, brought 70 other 
internal business teams onto the platform as well.   That is a ton of people and really value that you 
brought to, brought to your organization. And then   from there you came over to to lead consulting and 
coach others on how to achieve platform excellence   and really realize that the potential to lead 
their organizations as well. And currently Stacey   sits on Cask's executive team. Welcome Stacey, 
thanks for joining me here to talk about our   subject which is sharing a compelling vision for 
ServiceNow so thank you for joining me and taking   time. So let's get right into it because there's 
a few questions I think we might drill down into   and the whole point of this podcast is really 
to provide an authentic view on your thoughts and   get some thought leadership around again sharing a 
compelling vision. Let's start out with a basic   thing here, is why does vision matter in 
regards to ServiceNow and an organization? Yeah, that is a great question. I think, you know when I was a platform owner, 
there was no vision really for me around   ServiceNow it was like just this idea that we 
could get a product that we could actually   implement mostly ourselves and we'd have 
to go through a lot of different hoops and   and things to do it was fairly easy to put 
solutions on it. But over time, I started   to realize I really had something that people 
were interested in, right? So at the kind-of again at the beginning, I wouldn't have really
known that I bought it as a Service Management,   Help Desk, Service Desk tool like a lot of 
people do. But when I started to realize how   many business solutions you could actually put 
on there, I realized I need to be able to manage   um you know both of our intake process, where 
we're going, a road map and things like that but I   had to have people come along with me. You know, 
ultimately, you have to have people interested   in what you're trying to do. They have to see 
where you're going to really buy into it or else   they're going to you know naysay it or maybe you 
know just not not believe in what you're trying   to do. So there's a lot of things around vision 
that are important that I found over time. It's   one of the reasons I got into consulting was so 
I can kind of turn around and show people what it   took me a lot a long time to figure out. But it's 
become even more important now because ServiceNow   is so robust in its functionality just even 
right out of the box, that if you don't have   a vision around where it's going, it makes it 
a little more difficult for people to really be   interested in all the different parts and pieces 
and how they really come together. So that's just  kind-of the start of that. Obviously 
we work with a ton of clients who are either in the middle of, I mean we have 
clients that have been on the platform for 10,   12 years but they might be starting over or 
starting to expand it finally. They might be   going even further than they've ever gone or 
newer clients that are just starting to bark   on it now but they have big ideas and big dreams 
of where they want to go. So really bringing that   vision together or putting on paper and kind-of
something that you're going to say in every   room that you're in. This is where we're going 
and getting people to get excited about that.   The why. Why are we doing it, right? We want to 
you know improve our our operations, we want to   streamline things, we want to make it easier. And
a lot of things are on digital transformation and   really actually transform. We have data that 
proves that what we're doing we're gonna we're   gonna do all of these things and we're gonna do 
it on the Platform. We're gonna enable it with   ServiceNow. Being able to get people excited about 
where you want to go is so critical to be able to   get the buy-in to actually go there mm-hmm I 
find that it's funny you mentioned excitement   it totally does the excitement is is a big thing 
to me as well is me being a client architect at   Cask is that excitement is key to get people 
to invest their time because everybody's got   a day job everybody's going to be motivated 
and find a way to to do things and and look   at things in a different way and if there's an 
excitement level there it makes it all that much   more fun to me and and it's fun watching people 
transform I hate digital transformation as far   as the term but it's true they're transforming 
what they're seeing they get excited about it I   absolutely love it it's great I just want to 
add to it that you know it is hard if people   transformation that you're talking about right 
and it's so interesting when people kind of you   know they use the term like drink the Kool-Aid or 
something like that but when they actually see it   and feel it that's when they fall in love with 
the with the platform right it's literally like   a rewarding we like to say like intrinsically 
rewarding kind of thing because the the hopes   and dreams that you have you can enable that on 
the platform you can release people to do other   things because you automate you know waste um you 
streamline things you make it easier for people   to do this type of work and sometimes free them up 
to do other work right so when they feel that then   they really get excited about that so it's fun to 
uh be able to see that in our clients even our new   clients if you get them even just a little bit far 
you know into their journey and they start to feel   like it just builds momentum right you see that 
momentum building activity happening in inside of   all of their organizations yeah yeah and you you'd 
mention when you were talking about the excitement   and and the reason for a and you had mention 
something that kind of popped up to me and you   said data when I thought about data I was also 
thinking about you can have a great vision but   there's also the justifying the cost side and 
I kind of wanted to see how you thought about   justifying the cost and how can platform owners 
think about that in order to get the vision across   to leadership and show them this will benefit us 
what are your thoughts on justifying costs oh we   could do a whole podcast yeah I mean ultimately 
people don't think when they think about software   sometimes that that's the price right you want 
to compare you know this price of this to this   price of that or you know the and you can do that 
you can say hey with ServiceNow and I did that in   my past hey we had five disparate systems we 
condensed them to one here's the the bottom   line you know if you know basic math there's just 
it's just a few addition and subtraction problems   right but when you're really thinking about the 
total cost of ownership and how many people you're   going to have on your team and how many vendors 
you need to use it starts to get really big really   fast but when you really think about what you can 
accomplish and you think about the literal waste   reducing activity that's expensive right the cost 
of not doing it often far exceeds anywhere near   the cost of actually doing it right and people get 
stuck in that analysis paralysis when they're not   able to really quantify um what it really costs 
to sit there in that those motions right and so I   think about like one of my examples I always like 
to share as a client that I had that had it was a   very longevity based company the the last you know 
the the next five years they were expecting to see   about 50 of their total it team retire that's fast 
right losing people who worked at your company   your whole you know the whole time you've been 
in existence and now they're gonna leave right   and it's like even when you think about that 
you can honor what they've done you can honor   their careers and all these things but you have to 
look at what they what they're leaving as are we   really going to replace all these people one for 
one which is like oh hey Jim okay you're leaving   Connor you're coming here you know whatever right 
it doesn't make sense to do that right to be able   to more critically look at work and say hey like 
how much of these things that people are doing are   things that we could automate we could streamline 
make it different we can you know we can stop   swivel chair we can get rid of the system because 
you know so and so was the only person who who   really knew how to use it anyway and on a personal 
uh PC under their desk right so this that's just   one example but if you really think about what 
it takes to even execute one request end to end   it's it can be incredibly expensive you know I can 
think of another example with a government agency   I worked with where we looked at one process 
end to end we've used a lean approach to look   at a waste walk to see what they were doing and 
we literally found a million dollars in waste   in one government process wow that happens when 
people aren't it's no you know not the fault of   the people doing it they just they're just doing 
their work every single day so when somebody else   sometimes comes in and says hey like let me take 
a peek all right what you doing there and they're   like oh I'm logging into the system or I'm I'm 
gonna walk this over to so-and-so's desk that is   all expenses expensive yeah well we were able 
to do that I mean that just a couple examples   of things that I could think of offhand that 
really relate back to the cost of of you know   doing and not doing uh this type of investment 
and yeah companies have to look at it really   holistically to understand it yep yeah and you 
you mentioned something in there when you're   talking about looking at the how you look at the 
cost but you're also looking at automating and   making sure you're optimal regarding 
automation though I have you found   um people get fearful when you talk 
about automation meaning like you know people   for your job like oh I'm going to be replaced by 
AI or ml or whatever it is it have you found a way   to address the fear of automation throughout 
your your Consulting time yeah I mean I think that's the way that Cask thinks 
anyway Cask is a growth mindset type of   company we're always encouraging people to add 
skills and grow and you know I've never been   afraid of someone you know coming with me and 
learning what I do because I I'll just go and   do something else that's just fine right I can 
always find a way to reinvigorate or reinvent   myself and I think that's a mindset that is um 
something that people need to kind of kind of   embrace right so it's like you know am I worried 
that somebody is going to automate parts of my job   I hope not because I should be excited about the 
things I can do if they do that right yeah you   know what and most people are in that kind 
of mindset where they they wish they could   do other things but they're spending so much 
time you know doing something manual sending   the emails remind reminders sending more 
emails going and checking I mean there's   a lot of things in ServiceNow that are really 
request based time-based you know things are   on you know anything you can audit anything you 
can put on a you know all of that can just go in   there so it's like being able to eliminate those 
things and then use you know your own ability   and work with your leadership team to work on 
your own development say hey where am I going   um what can I do to innovate at our company to 
do the next cool thing at the company right just   doing the same thing is not really it's not really 
very 2023 of us right so you're gonna have to kind   of keep keep it moving right so I think it's just 
getting a lot of that fear and it's like using   technology is not you know you see it from time 
to time but generally not to eliminate a person   it's to eliminate that ways to free up people to 
do some of the other things that that they're not   able to do because they're so busy yeah yeah 
so when I I think about automation I start I   kind of always think about stakeholders and and 
what you know who makes the play into all this   and one of the things I I see as a challenge for 
organizations and I know you have too is how do   we create the space for stakeholders to discuss 
their issues so just to clarify your question   are you asking stakeholders of IT to discuss 
their issues from a technological sense or   uh no it would be stakeholders across 
the organization overall great question   uh not just IT but let's say it had you know 
everybody knows you know ServiceNow is an IT  Service Management ticketing system type thing but 
how do we get it to where we're conversing with   other businesses stakeholders because we 
it's such a we know it's a wide platform   and it's got a lot of capability but I run into 
people all the time that have no clue that it   did Legal Service delivery or HR it really can do 
anything uh but how do we get those conversations   started as my point to that how do we get IT to 
start thinking bigger or platform owners to start   thinking bigger and who else can they talk to in 
the organization and creating a space for that   yeah I think you know there's a few different 
levels of that that we see in clients there are   the clients that they still their company still 
sees it as a help desk or a service test tool they   might not even be on a broader more more developed 
Service Management journey just even integrating   service manager processes might be the next thing 
for them but then you've got really this kind of   ability to make it a Cornerstone product in 
it when you really think about item and all   the security uh aspects of it Asset Management 
things like that great so now if you got your it   Department kind of bought into that then it's 
like okay what about all the workflow pieces   right and even if you're talking about employee 
uh workflows if you're talking about customer   workflows any of those things it's it they're 
not always gonna they're not gonna think about   ServiceNow unless you've been able to show some 
value over there or you specifically went out and   did you know an RFP or something that was related 
to procuring it for that purpose right yeah so I   totally understand where you're coming from you 
have to be able to um you know again with that   Vision with kind of that that um definition of 
what you want this thing to be you have to show   other people what that is right some of that 
might mean you know doing you know Innovative   um conversations or or doing lunch and learns or 
things like that with certain people procurement   office is a great example procurement office 
absolutely should know what ServiceNow can and   will do that is one of the key ones because they 
see people requesting things all the time coming   across their desk so if they don't even think the 
ServiceNow because their brain to help this tool   it's this very technical solution for it they're 
not going to name it and they're going to let   people go and buy other things and there's nothing 
more frustrating as a platform owner to see   something come out that you're like oh my gosh 
we could have done that in ServiceNow and that   it probably would have been cheaper easier faster 
and it would have integrated with all the other   things that we're trying to trying to show I would 
have manifest a best you know solution coming into   the platform so being able to find the people 
that kind of need to have it but you do have to   have the marketing around it you have to Define 
it really as a service or application however   you want to do it and um you know really 
promote the additional capabilities of it in   to anyone that will listen to you in any format 
that's available to you depending on your company   yeah yeah totally totally hear you um and and this 
is kind of a lot of these questions are are Venn   diagramming a little bit together um but you know 
we we talk about you know showing people what we   can innovate with via like lunch and learns 
and other avenues and you kind of mentioned   it earlier because otherwise you start getting 
these silos of tools uh where you could have it   on a singular platform do you have any tips for 
those of uh of the listeners that are out there   that might be struggling with other groups buying 
redundant Tech you know going siled uh and again   you've kind of shared a little bit but I wondered 
if you had any specific things that you've seen   to help with people that are in that in that 
place where they're kind of fighting redundant   Tech or even Rogue Tech or homegrown versus built 
you know what I mean just other tools when they   could have done it in a Consolidated location and 
got a better Roi for the overall organization any   thoughts on that yeah totally I mean I think that 
you know it depends Hands-On we're sometimes with   the platform owner sits inside of a company 
you know do they do they understand the the   process to even under you know understand 
from the business what their requests are   um because if you don't have visibility to that 
you're definitely missing the vote and then you   know the rest of the IT Department potentially 
is is working with the business to answer their   requests right but it's still all prioritized 
it still all costs money right so the ability to   really think about the platform um as a it's going 
to say it's going to be faster than a lot of other   things that it might be using just and the more 
momentum like back to momentum building kind of   stuff the more momentum you can get the really the 
faster you can go like one of my favorite things   as a platform owner was when people were just kind 
of starting to come up with agile we had a lot of   development teams internally that were using agile 
and I was like what's this agile my team's already   like the best you know like whatever yeah a leader 
likes to think right and it was fun because when   we took agile training where she we're like 
wow we actually can go way faster if we was   agile because we don't have as many touch points 
outside of our team like the other development   teams might be without you know a master data team 
or a financial team or all this stuff they had so   many things that they need to think about when 
putting in a solution where we were just more   insulated and we could go you know that fast so 
being able to understand okay who's asking who's   asking it or are we asking or telling first of 
all are we in a position that the business is   listening to us talk about the solutions we have 
or are they just like hey IT knock knock we need   stuff in understanding that and then being able 
to help get into that into that mechanism so   that you can be a you know a servicer of those 
requests right that's a big part of it because   um a lot of times I think as you know as platform 
owners we are looking internally and we've got   a lot of things that we want to do especially if 
you're an IT Service Management platform owner you   want to mature your Service Management processes 
you want to do you know IT stuff for the business   right and you may not have really realized as much 
if you haven't gone into the more mature parts of   service management that Service management is 
about defining and helping figure out what the   what the it is what it is doing for the business 
in general it's not just operations so it's like   if you're not in that you know there's a lot to 
do there plus now you've got you know a customer   that's of your platform right so even like 
prioritizing helping figure out how to put   all your stuff together so you can really answer 
to both right and prioritize both but anyway so   my point would be um you know sometimes it's hard 
to look outside of your space but really going and   getting into that you know demand process 
and understanding how people are accessing   or requesting things of IT and how it is 
going into the business and enabling them when   they don't even know with something even if they 
don't know they need it. Yeah, you could kind of, I'm kind of putting the dots together from what 
you're saying. Which I absolutely love is is you   talked about you know trying to find 
a way to share the innovation, lunch and learn   whatever that is, but then also building a place 
where you can intake the demand which you could do on ServiceNow or gosh just use a use a 
form or something. You could do   it so many different ways, but it's providing 
the safe space could be just an easy, knowledgeable   location of where to put these so it can be 
disseminated out to the different business units   and become the Guiding Light of that and be taking 
that in. There's a lot there, there is so much   there. So I want to wrap this up with one last 
question and and this is a little vague but I have a feeling you're gonna have an answer to 
this that you might think of is. What as a   platform owner speaking to our audience,
what in your career would you have   done differently with ServiceNow as a platform 
owner? Not necessarily in your career, but as a   platform owner, what is something that you could pull 
out of your just vast knowledge and saying this is   what I would have done differently or considered 
differently, is there anything you can think of?   Absolutely had a roadmap even if it wasn't funded, 
it I would put everything on paper that I wanted   to do that and with the understanding that I 
could move things around, but that I actually   I understood more where I wanted to go. Not just 
where the world pulled me to but where I wanted to   go. Because if you do that 
and you get your roadmap put together and you're   like okay this is how I'm gonna this is the road 
map I want I'm going to enable it and I'm through   obviously funding people, you know there's a lot 
of ways that you got to do that, but to be able   to have that anchor document. When I've done this 
for other clients and I've seen lots of these and   Cask does a really nice job on these. But when I've 
done these for the clients my favorite thing is   when they, I had one client where they printed it 
out and every time I came they had it printed and   the corners were all frayed and had like a coffee 
stain on it and this is so cool because they saw   so much value in the roadmap that I put together. 
And they were using it when I wasn't there to talk   talk to people about what they were doing, right? 
And it's like I just think about how powerful that   it to have that kind-of guiding document that 
will help you anchor back to what you   you really want to get done. And again, it can be 
fluid it can you know you can take things and move   it out. I don't even always put um exact dates 
on it. Sometimes I do like now, next, later kind of   stuff and then of course you gotta have your 
backlog. And it could be long or it can be wide   but I think that would be my key thing is 
to have even iteration one of a roadmap is   something I would recommend to any platform owner. 
That's awesome I actually I can visualize it like   it's an honor to be able to have somebody with a 
road map that it's just totally messed up because   they've been using it so much I love that I love that. 
So to wrap this up, I want to wrap up   with a couple of points that you've made is that 
really vision matters because you can't go It   alone. Being able to get people excited about where 
you want to go is crucial to actually getting   there. Cost savings is so much greater 
than just the technology spend. You have to look   at it in relation to process waste and a more 
holistic opportunity. And finally, a couple more   is business stakeholders don't always think about 
ServiceNow as an option. Innovative conversations or lunch and learns are critical to proactively 
really spreading awareness and promote the   capabilities. And Service Management is not about 
defining and providing services to the business,   not just delivering on operational needs. 
And actively use your roadmap to show and   share your vision. So great to have you Stacey,
really appreciate your time and for those of you   that are watching, thanks for watching the Cask 
Distillery Podcast. There's more to come if you   have comments or suggestions or things you'd like 
to see from from us do more of, or more time with   Stacey, we'd be glad to do it. Thank you for 
joining us and have a great day. Thank you!