Good Practices for Asset Management, Part II

[JonSNash]

I recently shared some of my most valued "good practices" for asset management, including controlling data quality, breaking down the project into phases, prioritizing requirements, ensuring stakeholder participation and leading comprehensive training. To recap, I consider these "good practices" and not "best practices" because this is such a massive space and a lot of these tips simply come from a mix of common sense, experience and good judgment.

Today, I'll share my last six tips to round out this list:

Automate, Automate and Then Automate Some More

I'm an "automation guy." I love taking a manual process and turning it into something repeatable and reliable. I've also found that auditors are a lot like me when it comes to automation. If you can automate a process and show that it reliably executes and controls all of the variables in a process path, then they tend to verify it and move on to the next unreliable and manual process.

The truth is that no matter what tier of deployment you're in, you will absolutely see governance in the asset life-cycle. Looking for opportunities to automate is one of the most powerful and appealing aspects of ServiceNow. Take full advantage of workflows and business rule capabilities to get this automation up and running. Tools that help you automate the asset lifecycle in ServiceNow include Service Catalog, Workflows, Notifications and Homepages (dashboards) just to name a few.

For example, one of my favorite "quick wins" is simply associating contract information data, such as expiration or renewal date and vendor contact info, with assets. Having been stung by the expired maintenance contract once or twice, I like dashboards and notifications on 30, 60 and 90 day lead times for these assets. Another quick win you can get with automation is by creating a condition-based workflow around asset end of life and destruction certification.

Keep Your Data Fresh

Whether it's introducing new processes or automation or both, you need to look for ways to keep your data current. An obvious best practice revolves around your process for keeping data accurate. ServiceNow offers tools that support data certification to assign validation steps, certification tasks and notifications to send and manage related email communications. Data certification is condition-based and can be used to help manage your data.

Evaluate Integration Opportunities

Lots of data means lots of opportunities to integrate with other tools. But don't integrate just because you can -- do it because it provides a meaningful flow of data. Whether you're moving RDBMs through a MID Server to sync up data from a primary company data source or using a web service to place orders with a vendor, be sure that your integrations add value to the current phase of deployment.

Pay Attention to Reporting and Dashboards

I remember one time I was in a new role that had me directly responsible for a couple thousand operational servers supporting 20 or so applications. I didn't have any documentation except some outdated spreadsheets individually created by different teams and team members. Talk about flying blind -- I had no idea what I was responsible for, where it was or what it did.

With ServiceNow, the Asset Manager and everyone else can have access to reports and dashboards that display hardware, software, inventories, contracts and more. Think about how you can build reports, such as those that show when contracts and warranties expire or equipment location and depreciated value, that managers really need.

Don't Lose Sight of Your Targeted Outcomes

Define your desired outcomes at the start of every project. Equally as important, don't lose sight of these key outcomes along the way -- hang on to them no matter what. I recommend revisiting your outcomes at checkpoints peppered throughout the project.

As I mentioned previously, these projects can be big. Don't let your project die a slow painful death of scope creep and bolt-on afterthoughts so that it no longer resembles the original project. Sure, the technology is "cool," but don't do things just because you can -- make sure everything is part of your plan.

Make Sure You Fully Understand the Platform

Fully understanding the platform and its capabilities is critical. That's because you cannot clearly and definitively develop or streamline your process in a new platform unless you understand its capabilities. You can "rough" them out, but at the end of the day, if you don't understand the platform, you'll probably miss an opportunity to streamline. This understanding includes knowing the workflows, business rules, field types, policies and notifications as well as how all of these components work together. You need to understand these capabilities so that you can use them properly as you develop your processes. Working with a strong partner can help you make sure you don't miss out on any opportunities.

Good Luck!

Following these guidelines (and of course calling in an experienced partner like Accenture) can help make your asset management implementation a success.