SEAN: 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. I’m   your host, Sean Dawson. I’m a client architect 
here at Cask. And we’re going to be talking today   about getting back to out of box. You know, so 
many platforms out there can be over-customized,   and poor functionality has 
been broken: You can’t upgrade,   you can’t use new features and functionality.
And I have with me today a very special guest:   Christine Morris. And Christine has 
20 years of experience as IT leader   for Fortune 500 organizations across a broad 
range of industry segments. And in addition,   she’s been a platform owner for a global 
manufacturer. And I get to call her a   coworker. We work a lot together. So 
welcome, Christine. Thanks for coming.  CHRISTINE: Thanks, Sean. It’s great to be here.
SEAN: Yeah, it’s gonna be fun. And I wanna   start out kind of high level, you know, like, 
what is replatforming at a high level? Like,   what is it all about? And we’re gonna dive deep 
into it, but what is it at a high level? So   people understand what we’re talking about.
CHRISTINE: Well, you know, the ServiceNow   platform has been out for many, many years, 
and early on in, you know, the platform days,   it was “You can do anything with ServiceNow,” 
and you were encouraged to customize. And so,   you know, what’s really happened at this 
point is that people took that advice,   and they customized. And they built custom tables. 
And they built custom scope types. And they built,   you know, tons and tons of custom pieces of 
software. And then ServiceNow kind of took a turn   and really started iterating on future releases, 
growing the platform out to expand way past just   the fundamental ITSM ticketing system into, you 
know, really, you know, kind of an ERP. And you   know what? You know, for clients that had been on 
since those days of customization craziness, they   couldn’t even take advantage of those features.
So I myself was a platform owner. You know, I,   we had, I think, every module under the sun, and 
we had customized and customized. And, you know,   every time a new release would come out, you’d 
get excited, you’d go look, and you realize,   “I can’t use this.” So, you know, what ends 
up happening is you have to make a decision   at some point to say, “Is it time to try and go 
to a green field?” So there’s kind of a couple   different ways you can do it. You know, there’s 
trying to unwind what you’ve customized—which is   very much like a needle-in-a-haystack 
kind of scenario—or starting fresh.  SEAN: So, is there, like, for those listeners 
out there and people watching this online, who,   how do I identify who should be considering this?
CHRISTINE: Well, I guess it’s really, you know,   really the . . . those early adopters, you know, 
folks that have been on the platform for a long   time, especially, you know, pre-Aspen release 
days, when releases didn’t even have a city name.   You know, it’s those folks that have 
attempted to branch out past ITSM and   introduce new features and found that it 
won’t work—you know, it’s ultimately not   going to function due to those customizations.
SEAN: And you had mentioned this earlier—kind of   in the beginning—is ServiceNow features 
that won’t be available. It—there’s   a risk to it—but what have you seen in the 
market for features like customers that   have gotten caught and couldn’t do things? Any 
examples of so people could, like, go, “Oh yeah,   that’s me.” Anything, you know, as an example that 
you can share that you’ve seen with features that   aren’t available and how it impacts people?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I mean, I think from,   you know, customizations of the service catalog 
is a huge one. You know, people have, you know,   I think there are a lot of partners out there 
that have these prebuilt customization catalog   accelerators. And, you know, a lot of times 
what we’re seeing is, you know, people can’t   even use the fundamentals of the system anymore. 
So, you know, catalog is one that’s, you know,   really grown and is really fundamental for the 
platform. I think, you know, the workspaces—so,   some people have just customized their views 
and customized their forms to such a degree   that they attempt to start using the wonderful 
new workspaces, and they can’t even use those.  SEAN: Is there anything organizations should 
consider when they’re replatforming? Like,   kind of boxing it in? Like, what are the 
things that they should be worried about   thinking about when considering replatforming?
CHRISTINE: So, it really has to start with,   you know, a comprehensive assessment 
of your current instance, you know,   so that you can really make that decision as to 
whether it’s, you know, is it time to replatform,   or can I undo some of these customizations? 
You know, you have to look at the, you know,   the dictionaries of the various tables, 
You have to look at the integrations,   the dependencies across the various modules, 
you know, and really understand what you’ve   done from a customization standpoint, 
so that you can really identify those   pain points and their challenges and figure 
out, you know, that’s when we have to decide,  “OK, is this an unwind situation, or is 
this, let’s start with a new greenfield?”  You know, one of the things that we commonly 
see is that folks have to, you know, in some   instances, because the platform is wonderful, 
they’ve built amazing things that they may want   to take with them. So it’s evaluating, you know, 
do you really, is this something that’s continuing   to give value and doesn’t really have a place, you 
know, a current place or home on the new platform?  SEAN: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think you kind 
of alluded to it already is, with the assessment,   that’s kind of how an organization would 
figure out how bad it is. Because I—sometimes,   you don’t know until you’re, like, really analyze 
it. So how—on the other side of this is how do we   know if you’re gonna start over or unwind?
CHRISTINE: So, I mean, I think it’s really   bringing in a partner: somebody 
who really understands, you know,   what the platform is doing and can evaluate 
those backend tables and figure out, you know,   what’s there. Have we done just a 
custom—a couple custom integrations   or a couple custom fields that can just 
be undone? Or is it, you know, is it,   you know, tons and tons of information? And one 
of the other kind of helpful tools for that is,   you know, doing a health check with ServiceNow 
where they can run their tool and really kind   of see how far you are off from, you know, a 
configuration versus customization perspective.  And then it’s evaluating. It’s evaluating. 
The cost is another piece of it. So,   you know, if you’re going to unwind and it’s 
small, you know, then it’s a cheap and easy   approach. If you really—you know, I think 
what typically happens when we do these,   you know, assessments for our clients is that 
it’s not easy because of all the cross-platform   things. So, it’s evaluating what value, you 
know, what features can you take advantage of   and really kind of figuring 
out what that business case is.  SEAN: Yeah. And that leads me to my next 
question. Because you mentioned about   financials and thinking about the cost of it. But, 
and I know you went through this in your career,   but how do you go about getting funding when 
you do need to go back to out of box? Like,   let’s say you’ve looked at it. You’ve assessed 
it. You’re, like, gosh, this is gonna be,   you know, this amount of money may be bigger or 
smaller than you expected. But how would you,   how would you recommend getting 
funding when you do need to go out   of the box? Go back to out of the box.
CHRISTINE: So, one, it’s understanding,   you know, your organization’s, you know, goals 
and things that they’re looking to achieve. So   in many instances, you know, you’re, they’re 
looking to enhance the employee experience.   You know, so having, you know, line items from 
a planning perspective that really resonate with   your leadership team is huge. I think that that’s 
a big piece of it. And then it’s understanding,   you know, what parts of the platform or what 
features you’re gonna take advantage of that,   in the end, result in actual cost savings. So 
if it’s something as simple as moving to Virtual   Agent, you know, and you have an outsourced 
service desk where every phone call is a cost   and has a dollar value, you know, so using some 
of those new features to kind of offset the cost   of replatforming is, you know, I think, one 
of the things that we’ve seen most successful   because, in the end, if you’re—
SEAN: So building kind of a . . . go ahead,  CHRISTINE: I mean, in the end, if you’re 
introducing features that are ultimately,   you know, doing automations, you know, shifting 
calls away from the service desk, enhancing that   self-service feature in many instances, it can pay 
for itself. And it’s, you know, figuring out that   that model just, you know, so that you can show.
SEAN:   So it’s looking forward, too. It’s not just—what 
I’m hearing you say is don’t think about just   fixing what you’ve got but what you’re gaining 
out of it as well. Like, what are the features,   and then, you know, utilizing even, you know, your 
ServiceNow team to figure out what the ROI is for   those new features and business value and helping 
justify it that way. But it’s not just a cost. But   it could generate revenue, you know, depending 
on the feature. That totally makes sense.  So since we’re talking about platforming and, 
you know, we could be getting new features,   but what happens to all the data and 
the records that we have today when   we’re considering this? If we’re gonna be 
doing a reboot or a zboot or, you know,   refactoring, what do we need to be thinking about?
CHRISTINE: So, I think it’s really important in   that planning phase when you’re, you know, 
starting to look at replatforming, is to   figure out, you know, one, what are, what are your 
organization’s constraints around data? You know,   do you have to keep your change management records 
for three years? So, understanding that is gonna   be key. But then it’s, you know, if you take old 
data from a customized system and try and put it   into a new, clean system, what often happens 
is you’re just carrying over customizations.  So, you know, there’s a couple of different ways 
that we encourage—we don’t—we encourage folks not   to bring that old data, because, you know, there 
was a reason you were getting away from it. And   there’s a couple of different mechanisms, you 
know. Of course, you can store it in an SQL   database somewhere so folks still have access 
to it. You can also, you know, take that ticket   data if, you know—especially if you’re an ITSM 
Pro customer of ServiceNow—you can actually import   ticket data into performance analytics. So you 
still have your data and your analytics there.   But, you know, you’re not pulling in all those 
custom fields and, you know, muddying up your   clean tables that you’re trying to get to.
SEAN: Yeah, I understand. So, the next area   that I wanted to get into here with you is 
kind of on the preventative side. You know,   we might have listeners thinking, “Sell, gosh, 
I don’t want to end up here.” So what would you   say is the process to address over-customization?
CHRISTINE: So, I guess the biggest piece is really   having the right governance and framework. You 
know, one of the things that we see, you know,   with clients is that they give out, you know, 
admin rights to everyone, you know. You go in,   there’s like 30 different administrators. When 
you’ve got that many cooks in the kitchen,   you know, the recipe, it’s a recipe for disaster.
So it’s having the right governance framework,   you know, so that you’re making wise decisions. 
You’re not customizing, you know, and one of the   things that, you know, as we partner with our 
clients, it’s, you know, getting that strategy   and that approach in place first. So that when, 
you know, because any developer—developers love to   make cool stuff, but the developers don’t always 
think about what is the downstream impacts. What   are you gonna do to yourself, you know, three 
releases down the road? So having that governance   board that’s really going to make decisions for 
the platform holistically is critical—and not   handing out administrative rights to everyone.
You know, people, you know, there’s a lot more   features within the platform now where you 
can give somebody, you know, the ability to   create a catalog item but not necessarily, 
you know, hose up your backend and put you   in a situation that you can’t get out of.
SEAN: Yeah. Yeah. And I think we mentioned   customization first, but when we talk about 
avoiding, you know, needing to replatform,   it’s kind of that customization. Replatforming is 
not just about customization. But let’s say they   went down a road that they needed to go because, 
you mentioned earlier, things weren’t available at   the time. And now, all of a sudden, we’ve got 
to reverse it. So we can’t really avoid that.  But you mentioned something. When we talk 
about avoidance or “watching out for,”   this is governance. And within the governance 
framework, what are some resources, you know,   listeners can go to to look up what governance is? 
What do they need to consider? What roles needs   to be there? Like, with ServiceNow, is there any 
area you’d recommend, you know, our listeners go   towards and get some more information on that?
CHRISTINE: I mean, ServiceNow has got a great   site called their “Customer Success.” So it’s 
got a lot of, you know, kind of prebuilt models,   best practice information on what those roles are 
from a governance perspective that can really help   you set that appropriate structure in place.
SEAN: OK, great. Because I think that will   help. I think it really helps our 
listeners to know where to go,   because a lot of times we get questions 
after these episodes come out,   it’s like “Where do we go for that stuff?” So, 
that’s great. Thank you for that suggestion.  So that’s it for our time today. 
Thank you so much, Christine,   for joining us, and thanks for the time.
CHRISTINE: Great to be here. Thank you.