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Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
Duke: All right, welcome back to
another episode of CJ in the Duke.
So this one's a weird one, Cory, can
I just go for a rant at the start?
CJ: Yeah, let's, all right,
we gonna break up the flow.
Go for it, man.
Duke: Alright.
It's no secret that ServiceNow is not
the only tool of its type in the market.
True.
, CJ: I don't know, , duke, , I honestly,
only see ServiceNow Green Duke,
Duke: Well, I mean, I've worked
for ServiceNow now, so I'm
like, I'm fully bought in.
I'm not trying to convince anybody
to even look at something else.
But I guess what I'm saying is
you see a lot more advertising
for other types of tools, right.
, And
CJ: That's a lot of
Duke: yeah, and because
ServiceNow is the champion, right?
Everybody tries to market themselves
as different from the champion , and
maybe not respectfully at all, right.
ServiceNow did it when it was
the underdog, and now that it
is Top Dog, we're seeing other
players say, well, we're better
than ServiceNow because Right.
One thing that I've been seeing a lot of
is this idea of oh, we switched to such
and such a tool because on ServiceNow
it was taking us days, weeks, or months
to get even simple form changes done.
And on the one hand, you can rate
tools based off of their capability
of building things, right.
CJ: Right.
Duke: You can rate what type of
things they can build, what complexity
of things they build, how easy is
it for, , people to build on it.
These are all things that you can
objectively measure, but it struck
me as odd, like how would a tool.
Like ServiceNow that had its explosive
growth because of the ease of which
you could build on it suddenly get a
reputation among some people, right?
Of, hey, it's too slow to build on it.
And I've been sleeping on it and I feel
like there's paradoxes here there's many,
many reasons people can get in a position
where it's slow to do stuff on ServiceNow.
That's got nothing to do with its
competitiveness on building stuff.
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: that all make sense?
CJ: Yeah, duke, I think I get
what you're saying on this right,
is, fast isn't always the goal,
Duke: Yeah.
Well, I mean it could be,
but , there's things that you
can do that will slow you down.
Some of them good, right?
And some of them absolutely awful.
And those awful things especially will
not help you when you go to another
tool 'cause they're still there.
CJ: Right.
And so the way I talk to my clients
about this is that, there are
things that are, endemic to the
tool that you can't get around.
But then there are also things that
your company, put around the tool.
that can be causing some of your issues.
And so if you ever start thinking
about going to something else, the
first thing you need to figure out
is, is it the tool that's holding
you back or is it your processes?
Is it your company?
Right?
Because
Duke: your approach to build
or something like that.
So anyway, I thought it might be
fun to deconstruct some of these
paradoxes that could put you in a
place where you're like, oh, it is
really slow, and why is it slow?
Et cetera.
, So that you can have a better
experience building with ServiceNow.
for another decade, for another, you
know, for another two decades, for
as long as you use this awesome tool.
CJ: and I think Duke , this
is incredibly important.
Honestly, I.
in the context that you set it
up, , with competitors coming
out , and saying, , well we can do
this or that, or quicker or whatever.
But also, even if you just take that
out of the, conversation, it's always
good to know why you're getting the
results that you're getting, right?
Because there might be competing
interests internally, that make you
wanna optimize one way or the other.
And the only way you can do that is
if you know why you are where you are.
Duke: Yes, exactly.
Understand , why you are where you are.
So the thing that shocked me on one
of these other tool advertisements
is , they had a customer come out and
say, yeah, we needed this new tool.
Because on ServiceNow it was taking us
days or weeks or months to get something
done, like a simple form change.
And it, really caught me off
guard because it's like, no, it
doesn't, you know, it doesn't take.
I mean, mechanically it takes seconds.
Right?
CJ: Right.
Duke: Or at least it should, it
should take, so, so what are some
of the things that would get in the
way of making a simple form change?
Air quotes, right?
what would get in the way of making
that a really fast, easy thing to do?
CJ: First thing that I
think about is approval.
How long does it take to
get somebody to sign off?
Duke: Governance.
Right.
And it's fair to say that
governance makes things slower,
CJ: Absolutely.
That's the, whole job of
governance, honestly, in some cases,
? It, is.
To slow down the process.
Duke: I think there's a strong case
to be made that good governance makes
the big stuff go faster eventually.
But at the margins, good governance
also just makes things slower
because it's not Bob asked for it.
So Bob gets whatever he wants all
the time, always So, if it's going
slower, and obviously, like, I wouldn't
say slow, like governance shouldn't
make things slow, just slower than.
As fast as it theoretically could be.
CJ: an appropriate speed
for the conditions.
Duke: yeah, yeah, exactly.
Like my car can go not very fast,
but certainly way faster than I'm allowed
to take it anywhere around town, you know?
CJ: Right?
Yes, absolutely.
, And it is weird too, right?
Because cars are made to go a hundred
and sixty, a hundred eighty, two hundred
miles an hour on the dash, right?
But speed limits, you know what, anywhere
between 20 and 85, depending on what
state and what type of road, right?
Nobody has a speed limit
in America of like 120.
Duke: Yeah.
For the Germans out there, there's
no auto bond in the US at all.
Ever.
Sucks, but
CJ: Yeah.
So, what it comes down to is
that, capacity sometimes, , needs
to be restricted by governance,
because otherwise you end up with a
situation where you get accidents.
I like this metaphor.
Duke: Yeah.
Well, actually it's a great,
segue too to the next point.
Well, what makes you slow
tech debt makes you slow.
I have this horror story.
I once worked as, a platform
owner for a customer.
And when I first arrived there, they
had this huge backlog, like, how come
it takes so long to get a group created?
And I'm like, gosh, it should just be a
super easy snap your fingers, type in the
name of your group there, you got your
group the tool doesn't make that slow,
but , As one does, one builds a group.
There, you're done.
And they're like, no, I don't
have access to this or that.
And I don't see anything on the
navigator bar, and I don't see any
of the fields on the incident form.
And then you look and see and you're
like, oh, well, every single field
now has an ACL that's governed by
group, you know, and every single
navigator bar, entry, hard codes,
what groups are able to see it?
And it's just
CJ: Oh
Duke: all the stuff that you
built around that were dumb ideas,
CJ: yeah.
Duke: you know, that are now speed bumps
in your way to get simple stuff done.
That should be lightning quick.
And is that the tool's fault?
CJ: I'm gonna take a little bit of a, a
controversial, stab at this one, ? Because
there's two different, , perspectives
I think on this a one perspective,
is where we're going with it is no,
it's not the tool's fault, right?
it's the context, right?
It's what the things that we set up around
it or the things that we put into it
that made it slow, Like somebody built
this system out with,, a bunch of weird.
Requirements.
In order to make it work, right?
Like if you want to add a
group, it's not just the docs,
explanation of adding a group.
It's all of this other constraints
that somebody put in, into the
instance that you now gotta abide by.
Well, one that you now have to discover
and then you have to abide by, So
there's all of that tech debt that you
really need to rip out and rebuild.
Then there's the other perspective, and
this one is a little, controversial.
there's the question of whether or not
the system should allow you to do that.
And that is also one of those paradoxes,
right, of flexibility versus allowing
you to get yourself in trouble.
Duke: yeah, I hear you.
It's, I'm very curious what the
upper limit of, an automatic robotic
tool-based way to do that is, right.
So like, how can you give maximal
flexibility while also preventing people
from using that flexibility in bad ways?
CJ: Yeah, man.
Duke: competing virtues there.
I think ServiceNow goes a long, long way
I wish I had what ServiceNow is today.
Back when I started like instant
scan, atf, like you just stuff, you
could just say look for these bad
ideas or failed test or whatever.
And just tell me, warn me,
ServiceNow recently bought Brav, uh.
Best practice engine too.
And that thing, I can't wait for that
thing to get fully integrated where as
you're coding tell you, important best
practice information as you're building.
you know, there's more tools now
than ever before that way, but
you can still ignore the warnings
CJ: yeah, absolutely.
you can still drive your
car without the seatbelt on.
Duke: Yeah.
And it's, there's an
artifice to this, right?
Because there are times where it's just
like, well, everybody does it this way.
You should too.
And they're like, yeah, but we're special.
And sometimes they actually are,
CJ: Right,
Duke: and, and, and this way of doing
things scales really well, But other times
Maybe somebody had all the political
clout and they used it badly and they
forced you to put in a bad solution
that, just puts a speed bump in your way
for the rest of your service nowadays.
CJ: Yeah.
Now you have to explain that
to your user base, right?
Because all they wanted was an
extra field on the incident form.
Right?
I would like to be able to see the
callers phone number on the form,
why can't I just, why isn't that.
Something you can do like right
now, like while I'm standing here.
Isn't that easy?
Why can, like, why does that take a month?
You would have to have, you'll say, well,
CJ and the Duke's got this great episode.
Listen to the first 15 minutes.
And, you know, and, but, but
should that be the case, right?
Like, should you, have to tell someone,
or let me walk you through all of , these
reasons, like why development here
is slow and why, , just add an extra
field on the form, takes a long time.
You should not have to, but that is
often just the case of it, because
again, of the paradox of, maturity,
Duke: Yeah.
And it's just, a proper communication
with your stakeholders, especially
for that one specific example is
just gonna pay off in dividends.
didn't we do an episode on that too?
Talking to your stakeholders?
It's gotta be in there somewhere.
CJ: Yeah, we did.
We did.
Um, and you talked about the,
um, was it the product advisory
Duke: Yeah.
Yeah.
We'll put a link in the description below.
Everybody take a shot,
uh, to, to talk about that because
there's just so many ways to skin that
cat, you have a user reference there.
You could just hover over that popup
and with a, like a picosecond mouse
movement, you can access the information.
You don't even have to click and
there's their number, So do you just
need to be able to see it sometimes?
Do you need to interact with it?
, Maybe what you really need
is to just click on it and
have your system auto dial.
Like, wouldn't that be crazy?
But it's almost never as simple as,
Hey, I just need this field on a form,
CJ: No, typically not But
assuming that it is, even if it
is right, sometimes there are.
Governance checks that you gotta go
through before you can even do that,
Duke: man.
and nobody, fully, I.
Appreciates how, one man's
treasure is another man's trash,
CJ: Yeah.
Yep.
Duke: So okay, you get your, standard
email and standard mobile phone
number underneath the username
field on the incident form.
But buddy who.
Almost had to scroll to get to the field.
He wants every single day now
has to scroll every single day
to get to the field he wants.
'cause his field got pushed down two
more levels, under the fold of the form.
And so, yeah, one person got that what
they want with that new field, but
somebody else now has a harder time
because they got one more step to perform.
CJ: Exactly.
And did anybody, you know do any UAT on
that new field you put on incident, right.
That has that phone number?
No.
Duke: Or was there a stakeholder
council to like really talk about
this stuff before you brought
it to the ServiceNow team?
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: And like, just think
about the math on this.
If you have a user that wants
something done a certain way, they
want solution a and solution A will
buy necessity mess with somebody.
who wants solution B?
And you can't, and you can't
have it both ways all the time.
Right.
And so the net effect for
your team is an upset user.
You granted one wish, but
you still had one upset user.
What did you gain?
CJ: Right, right.
Exactly.
you went from, , one happy user
and one upset user to one happy
user and one upset user, right?
Duke: like literally nothing
changed except you worked hard
for that tiny amount of time it
took to to, to make that change.
CJ: Yeah, exactly.
The point of governance is to be
able to, expose that, to elevate
that and to have someone making the
decisions that, can highlight, Hey,
you should or should not do this
because it will or it won't do this.
And Whenever I hear folks tell me,
things like, ServiceNow is slow or
it, takes so long to do a development
thing and I automatically think, well,
what did you do to it?
Duke: Yep.
CJ: because it's like,
you, do you wanna demo?
It might take five minutes for my PDI
to spin up, but after my PDI spins
up I can give you an incident demo in
another five minutes that shows you
all the stuff that I could do rather
quickly, and that's the product, what
you might be using, not the product.
Well, kind of, right, but it's the
product plus your stuff, your baggage.
What did you bring to the
relationship, Maybe you need
to get some product therapy.
I like that.
That might be a, that might
become a product offering.
Duke: Product therapy.
CJ: Yes.
Duke: Yeah.
CJ: Because that's what it is, duke.
It's what did you bring,
to this relationship?
To screw it up,
Duke: Yeah, it happens all the time,
which is why we keep on saying, you
have to learn to be a good storyteller.
You have to be a good communicator,
you have to have stakeholder councils.
And the reasons we say this stuff
is that you can get politically
outmaneuvered to build stupid shit.
CJ: Yes.
Duke: another case in point, it was
one of my first jobs as a ServiceNow
admin, and we were buying smaller sized
companies that were big companies,
right there, were smaller than
us, but they were still big enough
companies to have their IT departments.
And there was a time we were
buying like one or two a month.
It was just like, this company
has to be completely integrated
into our shared services model.
How long does that take?
The PMs are like, it's gonna take three
months, and the C-suite saying, you
got a week, integrate this company
fully into our shared services model.
That's why we bought them, you know?
Um,
CJ: Right.
Duke: and.
a couple people up the chain looked
at ServiceNow and said, oh, this
domain separation sounds about right.
Build domain separation.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
This isn't a case where everybody's
got their own thing, We have to
integrate them, not separate them,
CJ: It's the complete
opposite, like that solution.
Yeah.
Duke: no.
D deploy, deploy, domain separation.
And I was so lucky.
I was so blessed that back in the
day when we went to Knowledge and
we talked to the domain separation
team, and they were just like, no,
like respectfully and sorry.
No, we will never do this to you.
And you'll thank us later.
I thank them later.
but , that kind of stuff
happens all the time.
So you have to be able to get into the
trenches and be able to communicate the
right solution, not the fast solution.
CJ: Yes,
Duke: people want magic bullets,
only simple ideas scale.
And so if they latch onto this thing that
seems simple at the start, so they could
go fast, you can have ruinous decisions.
CJ: I'm sorry, duke, I
wanna just bring that back.
Did you say only simple ideas scale
like I, because 'cause I think
that's genius, it absolutely is true.
, you can make as many changes
to a form as you want.
If those changes are simple and
your governance is nonexistent,
Duke: Yeah.
CJ: You can do that all day,
it will take you five minutes.
Wouldn't even take you five minutes, ? But
as soon as you introduce complexity,
as soon as you introduce something
like multiple stakeholders, as soon
as you introduce something like change
management, as soon as you introduce
something like, , integrations.
? All of a sudden now,, what was a
simple process is now a complicated
one and it now it's gotta go
through governance and you, it's
not gonna scale at the same level.
That making a change to a form with
no governance will a simple one.
Right.
Duke: like remember, remember that
mutual client we had not that long ago?
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: They had that one
catalog item, right?
They're like, how come this just can't
be easy, we need to onboard these
types of people super, super fast.
How come this form doesn't already exist?
How come when I use the
creator request generic form?
This stuff just doesn't
magically, automatically resolve.
Like the customers hated the
current experience, right?
CJ: Yep.
Duke: And they didn't
know what to ask for.
They just knew the current
situation sucked and.
We ended up having that multi-row
variable set catalog item that we
deployed so that they can enter as
many of these new starters as they
wanted, and it would run through the
process and it ended up being magic.
CJ: Amen.
Duke: because just because they said
it simple doesn't mean it's simple.
CJ: Right.
Duke: and Corey and I, I don't
know about Corey, but I'm old.
Like I'm, I'm I'm real old and
I've been through this cycle twice.
I did years on Magic.
Total Service desk.
CJ: I was there with you,
Duke: Yeah.
Give yourself a cookie if you know
what Magic Total Service Desk is.
I spent years on HP OVSD 5.1.
CJ: wasn't there with you?
Duke: Yeah.
Go brush your teeth.
If you've ever talked, if
you've ever seen ovs D 5.1,
get that bad taste outta your mouth.
and I've done it with ServiceNow, like
if there's one thing I've learned over
and over and over again dealing with
this three separate times, is that the
customer always thinks it's simple.
Like customer in big,
fat air quotes, right?
Like you could be the product owner at
your org and the person who sits next to
you wants something that's your customer.
Right?
So like, it's always simple to them,
CJ: Yes.
And that's because they don't
know what it they, yeah.
They don't know.
Yeah, I could, I could just
stop this statement there.
It's because they don't know.
Right.
All they know is the outcomes.
they, want the outcomes.
Duke: and we're not even
saying they should know, right?
Just trust me that I'm
gonna take care of you.
CJ: Yeah.
And so the way that I engage
with my customers,, I don't
expect them to know how.
But I do expect them, what I
should optimize for, right?
So when we're talking about, Hey, you
want me to build you something, like,
okay, great, what am I optimizing for?
Speed of functionality.
and so once you give me the parameters of
the box, then I can build inside the box.
So if we're talking about governance,
know, my question is still gonna
be what are we optimizing for?
Are we optimizing for speed or are
we optimizing for comprehensiveness?
And those two are two different
things, But if you optimize for one,
you should not expect the other.
Duke: Yep.
CJ: And that doesn't mean that,
a platform is faster or slower.
It doesn't mean that you can or
can't do one or the other thing.
It means that you made a choice
to optimize your system for a
specific outcome, and because of
that choice, you got your outcome,
but you had to sacrifice another.
Duke: And man, what about
all the other stuff that is.
Work that's got nothing to do with
what the customer requested, but makes
the whole system faster at scale.
one of the last custom apps I
built was just a custom task
type for medical training teams.
So this team would interface with
doctors and technology, right?
So a doctor was like, how come I can't
get such and such vitals sent to my text?
Or, you know what I mean?
It's just like this SWAT team
would parachute in and they would
teach doctors about use of all
the various hospital technologies.
To the stakeholder, it's just like, man,
can't I just get my own custom task type?
So I can track the work my team does,
and I just need these couple fields
and this front end on the catalog.
Like why can't I just
have that super simple?
And it's like, yep to you it's a
small amount of work because it's just
a table, a form, a list, a report,
, maybe a notification or two, right?
To me, I also have to do documentation.
Because like, I'm gonna leave tomorrow
and I don't know if any other teams
know , why this app manifested
or that it's there, you know?
So we got documentation maybe it
should have a TF tests behind it too,
because they're probably gonna wanna
change it every once in a while.
We gotta make sure it still works good.
Right?
CJ: Yep.
Duke: do we want to instant
scan it before we go?
CJ: Yeah,
Duke: It feels bureaucratic,
but there's essential build.
I'd even call it like the right
build, build it the right way, means
that certain things have to happen.
CJ: Well, and that's the thing, right?
And when you're immature, you don't
always build it the right way.
And that's why things are
fast at the beginning.
Duke: Yeah, like I just bought a house.
It's an awesome house and we
love a lot of things about it.
Do you know what?
We didn't love water
infiltration in the basement.
CJ: Oh, Oh, that's the worst,
duke.
Duke: And now I'm spending $30,000
to get the basement waterproofed.
killer waterproofed and it's a
metaphor for how our tools are built.
If you don't build it the right
way, A heavier way sometimes.
Yes.
Then somebody pays the
piper down the line.
I.
CJ: Water, um, floods and
somebody's gotta pay for it.
Absolutely.
And that's because somebody cut a corner.
Somebody didn't do it.
Do something correctly and look There's
gonna be, a lot of folks are gonna
say, well, it's a time and a place.
Right?
Sure.
There absolutely is a time and a place.
that is the whole point.
the paradox of all of this, right?
The whole point of discussing in paradox
is that there is a time and a place and
there's a sacrifice and offset, right?
Like a trade off.
All of those things exist and you have
to have that conversation because if
you don't have that conversation, I.
Right, like it gets had for you.
I always tell people, sometimes
you can't avoid a choice.
The only thing you end up with is
whether or not you actively made
a choice or you passively allow
the choice to be made for you,
Duke: Ooh, I like that.
Passively allowed a
choice to be made for you.
CJ: Right.
Then, then you're giving up your
agency, so you don't have any, decision
in what the outcome's gonna be.
So, when you are in a situation and,
there's a choice presented, do we want
it fast or do we want it comprehensive?
The answer is not.
No.
You know, the one of those is the answer.
Right?
You have to pick and what I've just seen
is that, a lot of folks on the platform.
Either aren't told that they need to
pick or try to not make that decision.
And where they ended up with is a, is
a platform that, you know, maybe it
was slow and now they don't know why
it's slow or they didn't want it slow.
Right.
But it's like, well, you didn't ask.
And so we built a lot of governance.
You're a big company.
It's like, yeah, but we
like to move quickly.
Nobody told us.
Right.
So you gotta have that conversation.
You gotta make those decisions otherwise.
They get made for you.
Duke: Yeah, and yet I, I think
everybody wants fast until they have
to deal with the consequences of fast.
CJ: Yep.
Duke: You know what, I hate saying
it that way because we just rewind
30 some minutes to the start of the
show where I'm like, I'm seeing these
tools advertise themselves as well.
ServiceNow takes so long to get even
the simplest things done, and we go
fast and I'm like, first of all, no.
ServiceNow can still probably get it
done as fast or faster than you, right?
CJ: Right.
Duke: It's just that we're not
saying everything should go slow.
I'm saying everything should go
as fast as theoretically possible.
Back down to that, like
the fastest, safe speed.
CJ: or you have to make
that decision, right?
You gotta make the decision that
you're gonna be bleeding edge.
You're not gonna have governance.
It's just gonna go in, make the, change
as soon as somebody asks for you.
But you also gotta know that there
are repercussions for that, right?
The rep repercussions to, to that blaze
of speed is gonna be stability, right?
It's gonna be tech debt, ? It's
going to be an instance that in
three years you might wanna rebuild.
Duke: All right.
Just got your message about
I have to wrap up in five.
I think maybe we take the last five
minutes and just, I'll just do a
quick sum up of what we talked about.
Fair.
CJ: Yeah, yeah.
No.
Yeah.
Let's do it.
Duke: We want everybody to be super clear.
This isn't a, conversation
about is ServiceNow slow?
Like I said, for those of you who know
how to build on ServiceNow, it's easy
to understand how fast ServiceNow is
and we can see through these marketing
campaigns of like, oh, ServiceNow
mechanically is super slow, just not true.
Okay, so what we're trying to do
in this episode is make us look at.
What could possibly build the perception
that ServiceNow is slow to build?
Alright, and what we covered was
the idea of good, slow and bad.
Slow.
Good.
Slow is the amount of governance
to make sure you are building
the right things correctly.
Bad.
Slow is not having the governance.
So you've built a ton of stuff badly
that makes subsequent build even
slower, catastrophically, slower.
I think we can boil a
whole episode down to that.
Right.
CJ: Yeah.
Yeah, duke.
I think that's a great summation.
Duke: Alright folks, thanks for joining
us and we will see you on the next one.
CJ: Peace