you're listening to accelerate a service Now podcast series about achieving your business outcomes where we talk about how to get the most value from the now platform hey everyone this is Crystal cger and this is Dri we're your hosts and excited to talk to you about service now value acceleration solutions that include expert Services training and impact hi every body I'm here with John Stein today welcome John I'm so happy to have you on the show thank you it's good to be here thank you it's good to talk to you so you are a senior engagement manager in the expert Services team which is the Professional Services arm of service now can you tell me briefly what your role entails sure absolutely and and appreciate the invite um really the in the traditional sense engagement managers are project managers uh for implementing our service now software in reality though I like to think about engagement managers as you know produ project managers on steroids um the vast majority of us in our organization were were project management professionals or PMP we've got industry certifications like I lean6 Sigma um we're all scrum Master Certified and actually most of us are also certified system administrators within service now um so we're trained on the methodologies and the best practices around project management but we also have a very high level and Technical understanding of our our platform and service now capabilities um where this is honestly most beneficial uh you know that we don't see too much within our industry you know in the traditional role of project managers is that we're able to have somewhat technical discussions with our clients and our stakeholders and and I love being able to um know enough to be able to talk through that with with my customers without necessarily having to rely on a developer or use a developer's time um you know I I have had some great mentors in my day and one of them um that I still talk through God probably for the last 10 years gave me this quote that really strong PMS uh know a lot about a little and and what that means is we have a really solid understanding of a variety of topics and I think where that suits us very well is within service now within such our broad ecosystem uh you know realistically one day I'm working with a customer uh managing a human resources Service delivery project uh and then I'm immediately jumping to another call that's implementing change management within our it service management uh and then Switching gears and putting my field service management hat on um so it's it's amazing to be able to take all the skill sets and and you know everybody that I work with uh as engagement managers all the skill sets that we've built over kind of our careers and apply them here at service now as what you know we call an engagement manager I love that quote uh I might have to steal it so thank you for sharing it's one that has stuck with me for a long time and one that um probably should be sitting above my desk somewhere at this point so I invited you to the podcast to talk about the National Hockey League give me some background if you can on the NHL's relationship with service now and the role you've been playing within that relationship okay well first I will caveat anything that we talk about is I'm a huge hockey fan I know this yes I've uh you know this the NHL my customer my team knows this um I've played hockey since I was a kid uh you know all the way up through through high school and college a little bit after school um but when I saw an opportunity you know looking in our pipeline uh with my leadership and my manager you know really at the beginning of last year of 2023 uh I saw the name NHL on a list and I said how how can I be aligned to them how can I take on this work and I was already over utilized I didn't have the hours and I I reached out to my boss and I said look if that's the NHL that I'm thinking I want to take that on um what and he's like you know at the time he's like John you're over overallocated I don't know if we can do that but we'll see thankfully it all worked out um but really the history between the National Hockey League and service now is is interesting um they purchased service now back in 2022 um and realistically there were some struggles to get the products live within their instance um they were trying to do it inhouse um you know at the time there was talk of working with other implementers and it came about where early 2023 um there was an opportunity where expert services so my organization could come in uh and really help them get over the Finish Line um so we started off as a very small staff augmentation project and when I say small I mean myself and two other individuals what do you can can I interrupt you here and ask you to explain what what you mean by staff augmentation just adding to their team exactly so yeah a traditional staff augmentation is we become an extension of their team but they are really driving the project so we're we're taking cues um from their PM you know unfortunately it's it's a very limited number of hours for my role as the engagement manager um but we're kind of coming in to be embedded with their development team for supplemental hours um it could could be advisory it could be Hands-On keyboard um but a staff augmentation kind of allows a uh a customer to add a little bit more flexibility um within their current team structure by bringing in subject matter experts from service now right that makes sense yeah so we started as a as a very very small staff log uh you know three individuals minimal number of hours um and you know it was interesting because when we formed our team when I brought the you know the business process consultant and our technical consultant so our think of a business analyst who writes requirements and a a developer who codes right um we had the chance to travel to the NHL's headquarters right away in New York City to sit down with them um and this was early February 2023 and Not only was I excited um obviously at this this cool opportunity this cool customer but I kind of heard some Rumblings that this could lead to much bigger things or bigger things were already in the works that I hadn't had insight into yet um we NE we spent the next two days in a conference room with us or with them excuse me and and we really listen to their pain points you know their challenges where they started over the last year where they were current state uh you know not necessarily their frustrations with the platform they they absolutely loved what service now could be uh within the league but it was more that they just weren't there yet or they didn't know the right questions to even ask um and I think that opportunity to use our team and going in and and understanding hey this isn't a situation where service now says you need to do XYZ um really set a great foundation and a great relationship um for our overall partnership and how we were going to grow uh so we knew their first priority was to have their it service management or itm live um that's probably where they were the furthest from a development perspective or an implementation perspective but they weren't live in production so nobody you know after a year nobody was actually okay and before we left U their senior vice president of of technical operations um respectfully kind of challenged our expert Services team and he's like look you know we're bringing you guys in um we know we want to be live we know we just want to be using the platform and can you get us live with something before our knowledge 23 conference and that was you know really we were looking about two and a half to three months out um and I I distinctly remember him saying to me he said John how cool would it be if we're at knowledge together and I'm able to tell people that service now us live with this and we're using the platform now um this was a once in a career you know I've been working in this uh industry for about 15 years now this was one those once- in a career light bulb moments um internally where I think I had that dialogue uh and I had the conversation with you know the other service team members that were on site with me and we kind of said wow we can do some very amazing things things with the NHL they just need some help they just really need some guidance they need some advisory along the way they they want to know best practice and how to do Agile um and realistically before I joined service now I was in the Consulting world for a long time and this Blended very well with my Consulting background and my you know the mindset that that I've been trained on and what I've been adopting for a long time um fast forward Ward 55 days later uh we were live with it service Management in their production instance and their service desk was using it and we we've always joked around saying how cool would it be to get a uh a hockey jersey with a number 55 on the back you know hang that in our offices or hang that in the office uh you know up there in New York um but it was a really defining moment because number one I think we approached it in the sense of hey we can we can show very long-term value if we focus on this really for the next two two and a half months um but more importantly there's going to be a story to tell that you know quite often truthfully our our engagement managers and our teams don't always get to see you know we we hear about it down the road after our project ends but uh knowing we had the knowledge conference coming up they were willing to tell this story to other customers early on so it set a great tone a great Foundation um to really what the long-term partnership has been uh and then what I learned at knowledge uh was that they were also announcing a a five-year strategic partnership uh between the NHL and service now so it's um it's really opened up the doors for some very very cool and very Innovative stuff that we're working uh with them on that's fantastic what a great achievement 55 days or so is that what you said um to go live that's correct 55 days yeah it's uh it's cemented in the back of all of our heads now did you get that uh that Jersey or not not yet we're still yeah we're still we're still working on that one um so talk to me about the business problems the the HL has been trying to solve I mean more specifically than than you have um just just now and some of the projects that um the NHL has undertaken to address these problems yeah and and really while it's been such a cool experience with them with with this league um they're very similar to other organizations and and we've reiterated that with them because sometimes they feel like they're they're on their own Island but one of the biggest challenges that they have just like pharmaceutical companies health care companies media companies everybody that I've worked with um is really around competing priorities and the amount of time and resources that are available to solve these problems um you know really after the Su success excuse me of Our IT service management project um the NHL prioritized a much larger initiative with us and and we heard once again we heard some rumors that it it could potentially come um but right after itsm went live they wanted to go they they wanted to leverage that success and that momentum um and the team that we had already and and grow the team and this was all focused around modernizing their their game day operations uh so we began the you know preliminary planning kind of that initiate phase uh but what occurred actually was a very high priority High urgency high visibility project kind of quickly shifted all of our priorities um we thought we were going to have kind of months to start working through this game day operations and and what happened is one of the NHL's internal teams that manages all of their advertising um came to kind of their their pmo and their technical operations team and said hey we're we need to move off of a legacy solution now and we don't have something in place uh and when I say now I mean within a few weeks um they they listen to what and saw you know what what they were using um they brought us in to really give our expert opinion to say is this a good fit for service now because because you got to think they really have only been working with expert services for only two and a half three months right and they didn't want to start a trend of creating custom or not using kind of the outof boox mentality that worked very well with our first project uh we we reviewed we took a day or two internally to discuss and we said absolutely you know this this was an opportunity where we already proved our value once with some longer term planning a little bit you know deeper discussion but now let's prove how fast we can be um within a few days we had you know stories created we met with the business stakeholders it was one of those rare opportunities where we knew it was so urgent so everybody moved everything on their calendars um you don't get that too often uh in a few weeks we had a proof of concept that was built using a custom scoped application within our platform and soon after we deployed that to production uh just before they moved off their their legacy system and environment um so it once again it showed the league you can be transformative with service now we can solve business problems we can be more efficient and we can also do this faster than ' ever done it before um we can be flexible when these high priority High urgency items um come up and what it also did is it it organically kind of opened the door into another department within the NHL like I said this was not their it team this was their advertising team um these are individuals that take advertisement requests from each one of the teams uh you know the Chicago Blackhawks the Detroit wed Rings the Boston Bruins they provide the NHL advertising that they want either on their website or on the boards you know in a game elsewhere and we G gave them a very efficient and very repeatable and outof the-box process that now they're using and we're even providing enhancements and iterating on which is very cool so this was a somewhat of a side project if you want to call it that right because it it you were in the middle of working on this game day operations project when this came up right exactly yeah it was a uh it was a total side project um where truthfully as a as an engagement manager as a project manager you generally hate um it takes it takes away resources it Tak it distracts you right it distracts you you you know as a as the best PMS you're like I've laid out this perfect happy path plan to get us to implementation and then a week later uh everything is thrown for a curveball so you know I like to always say kind of the best project managers adapt to that change really well and once again it it showed service now's ability to adapt and and meet a very high urgent need um while at the same time you know I knowing the team that I had I could still do some plan for our game day operations work which I'm I'm sure you're eager to hear about too um while the team was heads down doing development and testing and you know upgrades and all that kind of stuff okay so you're done with the advertising project now you go back to the game day operations um right so that was that was the interesting thing now we're a couple weeks behind the the curve um but we once again we were Flex and we had the right team in place where we could shift our mindset back into this much bigger project that uh not only touched their internal office um their internal resources but now it brought into play each one of the teams um they call them clubs so each one of you know Detroit or Seattle or Los Angeles um but also every single Arena uh within the NHL um so it was very similar at the beginning same approach as itsm listening understanding pain points understanding frustrations I I think more importantly understanding what their overall business objectives were for this year or you know in the in the league this this upcoming season the season we're in right now uh as well as long-term you know we can't we can't give everything right away because we know we need to scale over time um what was really interesting was this this gave us an opportunity to actually propose a completely separate application that hadn't really been talked about within you know preliminary discussions even before our team came on site um so listening to everything listening to to their objectives and their outcomes we proposed using our field service management solution um you know widely this type of solution was used by utility companies or you know that that type of Industry that has field agents that are given work by a dispatcher and then go and complete that work on site somewhere else um we saw that sort of makes sense right because you've got all these different clubs in different areas so that that's your field essentially it does yeah it kind of we said okay it's not the same apples to app but we can transform it to fit what the NHL's need is without having to build from scratch got it yeah that's all that's always right it's it's always been our big selling point or our big um talking point with the NHL is we want to make sure you guys can scale over time and while our solution allows for custom applications and sometimes that is the answer there's always opportunities to use applications that we already have built uh and this was one of those kind of perfect fits right we were also very transparent so this is the the really interesting piece around this type of project is our field service management has a ton of functionality and we knew that technically they weren't licensed for it at the time um so we were transparent going into this conversation proposing it to them to say look number one we recognize you've only been on service now for you know with us you know our expert Services team for about six to seven months only with service now for a little over a year at that point um truthfully you won't be able to utilize all of the functionality that this application has um you know whether it's 50% or 75% but we wanted to make sure you are okay with that because we will work with you to scale over time as you become more mature and I think that very much resonated with them because we were being honest we are being open with them we are saying look we understand this is a an additional purchase that halfway through the year financially you likely didn't plan for um but it's a but it's a solution that meets the needs with room to grow and it's out of the box right I mean they didn't have to customize much of it correct correct we we could enable it out of the box we can configure uh most of the outof boox settings and it also showed them an opportunity to say okay where are our areas that we need to improve a process what what are our pain points because now we have this great solution that the team built let's let's optimize our thinking and the way we're doing work to align it to this process that is already optimized um so it was it was a really good partnership in that end that we could build a great solution and get them to think okay we've done this for so many years outside of service now now that we have this incredible product how can we become even better be more efficient or more importantly track things track data have insights that we've never had before um so you're probably wondering okay what did we build uh so it's it's a built on our field service management application it's a mobile friendly solution that allows for the arena technical managers and the arena technical coordinators so think of the individuals employed by the league at every single Arena across the country to complete a checklist of pregame tasks and postgame tasks each and every game and there are 1312 regular season hockey games in a schedule not including preseason or postseason um you know that's a lot of work that always has to be done and as a fan you just sit down at night you turn on your TV and it comes up and everything looks perfect well there's a whole set of processes and act actions that have to occur to make sure all of those technical components and activities are accomplished prior to that you know 7 PM start time or when the puck drops um I think what was very cool about this from my perspective because I'm also a data nerd is this gave NHL leadership and Executives for the first time insight into core game day operations data so we built a dashboard where On Any Given night their leadership can log into the platform look at this dashboard and immediately see which Arenas are ready for that game day start or for for that start time which are falling behind I.E they have tasks that are outstanding they can see if incidents have been created for example you know offsides is a huge rule in hockey um there are cameras literally situated right along the offsides line in each and every ice rink and it's important imperative that those cameras are operating if a camera goes down you're impacting the game um so what we can do now with the system and in the mobile app directly within the palm of everybody's hand when they're going through that setup procedure they can say hey this camera is not working I need to immediately log an incident so now I have that tracked it gets you know FastTrack and escalated so we've got multiple eyes on it you know it can be resolved once once fixed or we can actually request a brand new camera now so they they have their own catalog of Arena equipment to say this is completely broken I have a game in three days I need to request this new camera and then it goes through their procurement process so that is all within a few clicks that was disjointed are all over the place in the past and from the executive oversight it's cool because now they have visibility into all that information and we're actually just now you know it's January 10th when when we're recording this we're almost at our halfway part of the Season uh we're starting an analysis of all that first 600 games worth of data to see where our opportunities where we can improve as an arena team as a regional team as a lead um for everything between incidents to equipment requests to how long it takes to set up a task to how many individuals are working a specific game things like that so it's if you can't tell I'm I'm that hockey nerd I'm that data nerd that it's turned into uh such a massive project that I I love to brag about to my uh family my friends my fellow hockey players that I grew up playing with um um and once again you know this we're we're in season right now and we're planning an enhancement deployment in a couple weeks too so we're able to take feedback directly from the users that are using the system you know we didn't know that when we were building it this summer we've got the feedback now and we can quickly transform that into new functionality that they they'll be able to use for the back half of the season so everybody that works at the arena maybe not everybody but the folks uh in the technical teams right that get the games prepped um are using this app on their phone or iPad or something like that right to log incidents and track that everything is ready for the game is that essentially what the app does correct yeah so so any individual that is responsible for setting up the arena and ensuring you know we're ready to go by the time the puck is dropped um they have our our Agent mobile Agent app yeah they're they're logging all the work the work order tasks logging incidents if needed uh creating equipment requests when needed um you know they have all the tracking information so when a when a piece of equipment is delivered uh to an arena they they know when it's delivered and they can mark it as received um so yeah that's that's all built within the app that they didn't really have before this is fantastic it it gives me such a different uh perspective you know I I'm not a hockey fan like like you but I've seen it on TV right like probably a lot of listeners and now I'll be thinking about it next time right I'll be like oh all this stuff that happens before is essentially managed by a service application it's very cool I I watch too much hockey my wife would say and now I've gotten to the point where when I turn on a game that's the first thing I'm usually that's what you're looking for like the person walking around with an iPad I'm I'm I'm looking at the guy in The Penalty Box knowing that he's he's looking at our app to track the number of pucks that have been used in game you know things such small things like that um that now we can bubble up and show really powerful insights and drive decisions on uh kind of for the next phase of this uh of this solution we have so much more to talk about but we're going to save that for part two of this episode please join us next time to hear John tell us more about his work with the NHL I'm Crystal Clevenger and I'm dri and this is a service now accelerate podcast series you can find us in other service now podcasts in the service now community at community. servicenow.com be sure to follow us in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss our next [Music] episode