ServiceNow Governance Should Enable Users, It Usually Constrains Them

When most enterprise users hear that their organization will start heavily using ServiceNow governance, they assume that their job is about to get much harder, not easier. This stems from admins putting overly-restrictive policies in place, even with the good intentions of preventing security or financial problems. The negative side effect of this often manifests itself as a huge limitation for users who are just trying to do their job. Ultimately, this can lead to “shadow IT”, angry users, and inefficient business processes. So how can you use ServiceNow governance to increase efficiency rather than prohibit it?

What is ServiceNow governance?

One of the main features of ServiceNow is the ability to implement processes for approvals, requests, and delegation. Governance in ServiceNow includes the policies and definitions of how decisions are made and who can make those decisions. For example, if a user needs a new virtual machine in AWS, they can be required to request one through the ServiceNow portal. Depending on the choices made during this request, cloud admins or finance team members can be alerted to this request and be asked to approve the request before it is carried out. Once approved, the VM will have specific tags and configuration options that match compliance and risk profiles.

What Drives Governance?

Governance policies are implemented with some presumably well-intentioned business goal in mind. Some organizations are trying to keep risk managed through approvals and visibility. Others are trying to rein in IT spending by guiding users to lower-cost alternatives to what they were requesting.

Too often, to the end user, the goal gets lost behind the frustration of actions being slowed, blocked, or redirected by the (beautifully automated) red tape. Admins lose sight of the central business needs while implementing a governance structure that is trying to protect those business needs. For users to comply with these policies, it’s crucial that they understand the motivations behind them — so they don’t work around them.

In practice, this turns into a balancing act. The guiding question that needs to be answered by ServiceNow governance is, “How can we enable our users to do their jobs while preventing costly (or risky) behavior?”

Additionally, it’s critical that new policies are clearly communicated, and that they hook into existing processes. Not to say that this is easy. To be done well, it requires a team of technical and business stakeholders to provide their needs and perspectives. Knowing the technical possibilities and limitations must match up with the business needs and overall organizational plans, while avoiding roadblocks and managing edge cases. There’s a lot to mesh together, and each organization has unique challenges and desires, which makes this whole process hard to generalize.

The End Result

At ParkMyCloud, we try to help facilitate these kinds of governance frameworks. The ParkMyCloud application allows admins to set permissions on users and give access to teams. By reading from resource tags, existing processes for tagging and naming can be utilized. New processes around resource schedule management can be easily communicated via chat or email notifications. Users get the access they need to keep doing their job, but don’t get more access than required. Employing similar ideas in your ServiceNow governance policies can make your users successful and your admins happy.

Originally published at www.parkmycloud.com on July 8, 2020