Understanding the Role of the Executive Sponsor

[Jason Knickmeye]

Just having a ServiceNow Platform Support Team isn’t enough, if you want to extend ServiceNow as a strategic platform for digital transformation. Why?

An engaged Executive Sponsor can help champion your vision for ServiceNow and remove obstacles that could prevent you from delivering business value using the Platform. But it can be difficult to find the right leader to be your Executive Sponsor, and to define how that leader can best help you achieve your goals.

To help with this, we’ve highlighted four questions to consider when defining the Executive Sponsor role:

1. “Whom should we consider approaching to be our Executive Sponsor?”

The Executive Sponsor should be a senior leader who can play an active role in supporting the ServiceNow Platform Support Team. The best Executive Sponsors tend to be c-level leaders because they typically have authority and influence needed to support your vision for ServiceNow. However, it’s also important to make sure that your Executive Sponsor has the time and interest to be actively engaged in what you need from them. An Executive Sponsor who just approves budgets, or “checks in” once a month, might not be engaged enough to support your team.

2. “What would our Executive Sponsor’s role and responsibilities be?”

An Executive Sponsor’s key role is to work with the Platform Support Team to set the ServiceNow strategic roadmap and ensure it aligns to measurable business outcomes. They also communicate the value of ServiceNow to executive peers and clear organizational roadblocks to empower the ServiceNow Platform Owner and Support Team to execute the roadmap.

 

A job description for the ideal Executive Sponsor should include:

• Creates and enforces the vision and strategy for the program managing the platform and the alignment with solving business issues. 
• Partners with the Platform Support Team to ensure that team and platform capabilities are aligned with the vision and strategy. 
• Understands the capabilities of the Platform Owner and the Platform Team and, in partnership with the Platform Owner, supports change and/or additions to the Platform Support Team to improve their ability to execute the vision.
• Leads and actively participates in governance meetings and activities to communicate the executive vision, alignment with the enterprise, and assurance of execution to that vision. 
• Manages the ServiceNow budget and coordinates budget request prioritization.
• Acts as the executive point of approval authority and the final point of escalation for all decisions and policies that govern the ServiceNow Platform.

3. “How can our Executive Sponsor best help us?”

The most effective Executive Sponsors are usually the ones that:

• Are actively engaged in setting strategic direction for the ServiceNow team. They contribute proactively. 
• Effectively communicate how ServiceNow solutions can solve their peers’ business issues, citing success stories and value already realized by ServiceNow adoption. 
• Accelerate adoption of the platform in other parts of the enterprise where ServiceNow can solve issues. 
• Are evangelists for ServiceNow’s potential to enable transformation across the enterprise. 
• Identify where and when to delegate tactical decision making and approval responsibilities around ServiceNow governance, to free time for strategic decisions and stakeholder engagement.

4. “Whom should our Executive Sponsor help us work with?”

This depends on which areas of your organization are currently supported by ServiceNow, and which you think could benefit more from using ServiceNow. Use the chart below to identify key stakeholders in each business area that your Executive Sponsor can engage.

 

One key insight here is that all potential stakeholders listed above are in senior roles (nothing below VP or Director level) – the Executive Sponsor should not over invest time in engaging peers that are not positioned to directly recognize and act to use ServiceNow as a solution to their business challenges.

Learn more:

• Success Checklist: Engage executive sponsor to drive change and remove roadblocks (PPT)

Jason Knickmeyer, Research Manager, Best Practices Center of Excellence – Customer Success at ServiceNow