 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering ServiceNow Knowledge 2018, brought to you by ServiceNow. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge 18, hashtag no18. I'm Rebecca Knight, your host, along with my co-host, Dave Vellante. We have two guests joining us. We have Mitch Kenfield, who is an advisory principal, CIO advisory at KPMG, and Adrienne Hubbard, service and process manager at Linkladders. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Adrienne, I want to start with you. Can you describe for our viewers what was sort of happening, what was going on at Linkladders, sort of the inflection point where you realized you needed to step up your game in this arena and just lay that out for our viewers. Yeah, I think from Linkladders point of view, we very much kind of use the telephone more than anything else. It's very much a contact organization through voice. And we wanted to implement a platform that would engage the users in a different way, more to be self-serving, more chat, more reach to service if you like. And we saw service now as the right tool for that. We did some due diligence and RFP process, but that wasn't enough. We had to build a strong business case to make sure we're doing the right things. And that's when we kind of reached out to KPMG to see what they could offer us in this space. Talk more about your business. So we're a global law firm. We're kind of part of the magic circle. So there's four or five in that arena. We call our strong peers. And yeah, as I say, fee earners can be very challenging. Their day themselves needs to be very efficient and very effective. And they don't always want to have to self-serve. So one of our challenges is the more time they spend with us, the less time they're billing their clients, which is ultimately the revenue of the firm. But then when you've got 450 plus partners, they all feel they want to run the firm in a way that perhaps is regional, office-based. So some of those challenges play into delivering service also. You talked about doing your due diligence. How did you go about that? What was your process? So we engaged with a consultancy firm to help us through the process. Through that, we worked out where did we want to get to our vision? We shortlisted some tool set firms that there was about three or four on the list that we knew met the requirement. So we then went through the process of the next layer down and series of workshops with each provider. Obviously, there was a cost model. We got supplier guys involved from a contract perspective try to get the best price. But I think deep down, we always felt service now was the right fit for us. And I've been at Linklades six years. When I first joined Linklades that time ago, we went through the same process. We chose a different tool then, but service now was in the list and we really would have liked to have gone there six years ago. But I think service now have improved a lot during that time and now was the right time for us to choose them. It was the one that got away and now you brought it back. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. So Linklades reached out to you. So then describe how you sort of shepherded through the process. Yeah, so they had reached out in our London office and I guess I had happened to be there and jumped on the phone with them. And first of all, when Adrienne mentions about the culture of a law firm, so we are a consulting firm of consultants and tax and audit and finance folks. And so we kind of understand that. Like it's kind of like the industry where everybody's the boss and nobody's the boss, right? We jumped on the phone and one thing that I mentioned as Adrienne was describing is that we see this space as an opportunity to truly change the way the technology business is running and therefore change the ultimate business. And so we tell our clients a lot, if you're just going to kind of implement it might not be the right thing for you but if you're ready to transform the way you run technology and the way that supports the business we think we can help and we brought something to them called that we call powered IT which I can give some details on but just at the highest level it's our view of an accelerated transformation that includes some technology components but more than that includes operating models and process to say let's not reinvent things let's bring to you what's good and then that way we can spend our time focusing on the specifics for you to get you to the business result you're looking for and that was kind of that first conversation we had. Sure. So the word agile transformation is popping into my head, right? I mean it's such a common theme today but is it relevant to what we're talking about? Yeah absolutely, so I'll start Adrian and maybe you can give your perspective on it. So when we bring that our view and again we call it power just as a tag but really what it is is it's an acceleration, it's the components from an organizational aspects process, metrics, supporting service now with some kind of near the box configurations to add into that and then to your question it's how do we deliver that in an agile way where you see it constantly we don't take six months before we show something you're seeing it regularly and we can course correct and tweak to say we've got a limited amount of effort we can spend let's spend that in that agile methodology for things that transform you sooner and get it done. Would you, what would you say, what was y'all's reaction? Yeah and that's to add to that so what was really important for me is that we hadn't worked with KPMG before so although we were talking early doors we didn't know what this powered IT was what it would bring us so we made sure we had a number of pre-sales workshops where I could see the product and they've got a very strong environment where I could see exactly what I was going to get at the end which is important for me because there's always a risky element going in with a new incumbent that it was going to be a success of this or not and I had to be sure that we did the right risk assessment so actually to be able to be provided with that kind of out the box experience because often you go into a sales call or into the RFP process and then you come out the back end of it and actually you see what you're not actually getting what you saw in that sales demo so it's important we did that extra loop so I think we're able to see the end product if you like and then through talking with Mitch and the team and the UK guys we then knew what the approach would be very agile and quite aggressive as well we delivered end to end in 14 weeks which considering that it took us from the old tool to service now it took us from old way of working to a new way of working on day one we switched the old tool off on day one there was a lot going on it was you know we had to really stick to scope as well so managing stakeholders I'm interested in how you manage risk because that's the one thing that popped into my head yeah when you transform and your business processes are affected you know you want to move fast absolutely but there are dependencies so how did you identify those how did you guys manage the risks? I think if in terms of we were quite strong on what service improvement plans were looking like we knew that we needed a new tool we knew the tool would unlock it but what we didn't know is the extras that KPMG would bring for the powered IT so it's more than just the tool set itself it's actually the processes and the policies so because we're able to look at those day one we knew what the end product was going to be and plus we went with the kind of the preferred powered IT platform what we didn't try and do was to impose our current way of thinking we took the KPMG way of thinking which was the less risky approach it meant that we weren't customizing which was a big danger for us potentially so we also knew that it's fully supported because KPMG had put this powered IT module together built with other clients as well so we knew we were adopting best practices from other clients but actually it was fitting with where we needed to get to from a vision I think the thing that made me a little bit nervous was we've been through a number of maturity assessments over the years that said our processes were quite mature where we were weak really was some of the reporting the visibility of performance so again, whatever the kind of key things from risk assessment let's make sure the key things we could see working and then we knew that the risk was less but as always when you engage with a new incumbent for the first time we had to make sure that we met the team as well that was also a key part for us to make sure the people would be working with from day one, we met them at the beginning and they stayed throughout so that was also very good for us So Adrian, I'm curious about your particular experience and Mitch, I wonder if you could chime in on other clients that you might see you always hear you got to have buy-in from the C-suite top down but when you go change the operating model I often hear the senior management goes and then the rest of the company's like well, we got to run the business and they're trying to catch up is that a common problem? How do you guys deal with that? I think our senior team have been in place they've been very supportive there hasn't really been an issue there and a lot of the senior team also supported the decision to go service now which is important for me I have to say not all parts of the IT organization thought it was the right decision but we had to demonstrate that as we went through and the series of workshops was important early doors so we made sure we engaged the right stakeholders they felt part of the whole solution end to end and yes, people tried to push the scope at times tried to scope creep but we've actually seen a management very good in supporting me to stick to scope now stick to what we've agreed to do help me push back certain people where they became challenging and because we stuck to that scope we delivered on time but the fear would have been, as you know you customize, you go off track I think what we see to your analogy and Adrienne I think you'd agree it's you have to have that senior commitment there can't be a question of why but what breaks down often is that kind of next layer of key managers and stakeholders that maybe didn't show up to that meeting and those are the little things that can kind of take it off rail and to your question earlier about Agile the great thing about a well executed Agile methodology is not about doing Agile configuration it's about doing Agile business transformation it's about having regular interaction points where those stakeholders are involved in the process and every day they're in those sessions and they're seeing something and they get the chance and you connect together and that's what gets you to the end of it to where instead of just in 14 weeks we deployed a technology that kind of feels the same way we used to work you deploy a technology and people are doing things different and that's a key aspect A lot of repetition A lot of repetition A lot of over-communicating and we tell our clients a lot like it's going to be a rough 14 weeks because you're going to be involved this isn't the old tell me that well it's not where you're going to give me requirements we're going to go away and build something and hope we got it right and you're going to say like you said that's not what I thought I was going to get we're going to be in it and the teams are working collaboratively stand up meetings and all those kind of things and it can be interesting and for many of our clients it changes the way they think about programs, right? So how's it going? I mean what's the business impact been? It's been really positive of course the talk set itself is really good the fact that you've got 20,000 people here kind of demonstrates that but it is the industry platform and there isn't anything that comes close to it if we're being honest but in terms of where we are now we are gaining a lot of benefit from the dashboards, the reporting it was still going to make sure the quality of data is good of course but actually visualizing our performance is really powerful but we've also introduced new ways of interacting with our user base so chat is a big thing for us we now have a user portal that we want to market out to the firm so we're trying to get away from the telephone as the first point of contact and move into other contact areas like the portal so that's kind of areas that we need to kind of you now market outward but we're about three months in from go live so we're now kind of looking back on some of the improvements already that we want to make so looking at how we're using it working with teams on using it better so the improvement cycle is kicking in and we've already made some minor improvements and there'll be more to come so you avoided custom mods which is very important because the allure of custom modifications it's so attractive and then you get technical debt and you're stuck with it what have you learned if you had a Mulligan would you choose anything differently yeah it's an interesting point because I think one of the things we could have done better already was the training because what was really powerful about Powered IT there was training material we had to kind of adapt that for our own change process of course understanding our culture and how training works with Linglators isn't necessarily the same as perhaps other technology firms where they're expected to self learn very much the model at Linglators is kind of classroom led training that tends to be our culture and we perhaps didn't do enough of that before go live so yes everyone went live day one they could log a ticket but they couldn't unlock all the other benefits of what we were really trying to deliver so I guess there's one of those areas that you could always overdo but I think I would go back and arrange training earlier make sure people know the training's coming make sure their diaries are free as well because we're all busy people but I think yeah I think other than that I think we did a good job in the 14 weeks but I'd come back and look at training again and when was your go live? we went live on the 12th of February this year oh okay and single CMDB is the vision or goal or yeah so we went live with the CMDB we now need to populate that out and everyone knows that can be a pain point so that's one of the kind of evolutions we're going through now but we as I said we switched off the old tool on the day ones we had to make sure the customer facing processes were working that we could make control changes problem management could deal with issues that reoccur so all that was in place but actually we've unlocked the power of the tool for visibility managing the tasks across teams was quite big for us as well but the whole transparency of data has really improved the way we work great I think one aspect to play on your question there are certain aspects of the platform in that transformation that you may not do all but you need to design an architect right the first time so on the CMDB you may not have it all the way populated but if it's not architected with a good CMDB data model it'll catch up later on to your point and so a lot of I think that effort is you know a certain amount of time you have to show value and then you lay that groundwork you start improving and then you make the decision of when if and when do we expand into new things like when do we move into new areas outside of the core and those kind of things well you know this Mitch too I wonder if I'm going to comment maybe you could give me your observations early on in the service now you know as before the big ascendancy a lot of mistakes were made in terms of companies not standardizing getting the CMDB architecture right for a lot of reasons you had politics people were trying to slide it in and now you see a much more consistent vision around CMDB how to architect it single CMDB one throat to choke essentially yeah I agree totally and I think if you look at the ecosystem of what this all is you have to level set on it was drastically different from a platform perspective and you know three or four years ago than now and to your point I think there were a lot of relatively quick implementations if you will and again quick implementations okay as long as it's architected and thought through for the long term and I think we're seeing in the market some implementations that maybe made some shortcuts if you will but to your point the things that you got to get right you got to get the CMDB and the data model that layer right you got to get the employee experience right you only get one chance to set an employee experience if you underwhelm then you've lost that audience right then they're like eh well yeah you know and you only get one chance to have some transformation it doesn't have to be you know going from crawling to you know sprinting but if you go from crawling and it feels kind of the same way you lose interest in expanding the capability so I think that's we've all you know the ecosystem has learned from that and there's some things you got to get correct and what we try to do with our clients is try to say hey let's let's not argue about those things right let's not start with a whiteboard and argue about the things that should be the same for link ladders that should be the same for you know anybody let's get that 80% where it's let's focus on the things that are specific to you and not deal with that common stuff right capture their attention right away absolutely and we use a term internally and sometimes with our clients everybody knows the 80-20 rule right you do 80% of it you just should stop it's not worth ever we switch that we say 20% is what makes it work for you we should just power through the 80% that should be the same for everybody else and the 20% that makes it work for you how do you deal with employee experience in a law firm right where everybody are knowledge workers that have all that's very different than employee experience in a you know industrial manufacturing firm right that's what matters and what makes it transformational to a specific organization and you're on Jakarta or Kingston or we're on Jakarta yeah okay yeah great and again because it's because it's delivered through Powered IT KPMG do a lot of the testing once a new version is available it's there it's there offer to us in terms of making sure it's fit for purpose for their Powered IT platform and there's been said it's the 20% that we're configured for link ladders is what we need to test so we're big believers and John mentioned it this morning of only you only say one behind it most we're big believers in we should help our clients learn what's in the new upgrade and how it applies to them so we've we've heard this this week there's some great things coming out with London some new things in the experience in some automation some so on so our job is to bring that to our clients with Powered and say yep we're ready for you here's what's in it and by the way here's what they've advanced and here's what you should look to add and let's have that ready for you so if I so you keep people at worst and minus one correct is really your general advice to clients is if it if you need to go to and if there's functional new capabilities that change your business go to and right away right if it's more just add on state and minus one learn from the others and keep advancing but never go later than that absolutely and and but service now will allow you to be and minus you right yes they will going forward they're going to keep you more to and no longer exactly so you want to say just one release back and you want to make sure and again to use that term I use earlier as long as you stay near to the box you know and out of the boxes you can't if you turn it on it's you know you need to add it get it into your environment you need to tailor it right but there is there's a fine line between staying close to that and doing way too much and over configuring not even customization just making it to where it's you know it's really complex and that's where we try to keep our clients away from you still do they still do cakes you get a cake yes had a good one yeah we had a really good one on go live yeah it's actually linked in so yeah don't have a look that's a law books it looks really smart it looks really good very good and it's also great too that's important Adrienne Mitch thanks so much for coming on the QB at a great time thank you welcome thank you I'm Rebecca night for Dave Vellante we will have more from service now knowledge 18 coming up just after this