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Donte Hooker has a long and storied career in the ServiceNow ecosystem. But now that he's fresh out of the Certified Technical Architect program, he's agreed to give us the goods about CTA. We also talk playing to win at the highest levels of the ServiceNow game.
Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
[00:00:00] Duke: All right, Corey, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:02] CJ: And so today, duke, we've got a special guest with us today. We've got my man here, Dante hooker, , he and I have worked together in a number of places. And, uh, yeah, we're gonna, we, we're just happy to have him on the show and just talk about a whole lot of stuff.
[00:00:16] Duke: Totally. Totally. And, congratulations, Dante, on the latest achievement in your portfolio, the, uh, certified technical architect,
[00:00:26] Donte: you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
[00:00:27] CJ: Congratulations, man. That's awesome. Awesome achievement.
[00:00:31] Donte: Thank you both. I
[00:00:31] Duke: that, that.
might be a great place to. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, we've dragged you on the show so you could talk about it cause on UN,
[00:00:42] CJ: Right. Like, we're all like non CDA and we've got like little menial certs over here.
[00:00:48] Duke: tell us about.
[00:00:50] Donte: Well, the CTA program is pretty good. I mean, it's one of those things where, when I looked at it, um, one thing that I wanted to do is really focus on the technical. Uh, you had the CMA, right? The master architect. And I really was looking at that, but when I saw this new program for the CTA. It grabbed me because it, it was more on the technical architecture side, really going into a lot of things where you're talking about the entire solution, not just a platform perspective as a whole, um, but also all the different, uh, would say products out there.
So you're really going through and understanding how to deliver a solution end to end from security. Platform database encryption, um, products from a requirement standpoint use case. So it's really good from that perspective. Some things that I didn't know already from being in the game for a good 15, 16 years, but a lot I didn't.
Right. Um, so it was really good to understand how to frame these things when you're dealing with customers.
[00:01:49] CJ: Yeah. So you said some things you didn't know. I mean, that, that, that, that one, strikes me as hard to believe. I I'm used to you knowing practically everything. So why, why don't you highlight some of those things that, that were new to you?
[00:02:02] Donte: Well,
[00:02:02] Duke: I, I, I thought you were teaching the whole thing. I didn't know. You.
[00:02:10] Donte: Well, maybe the next class, they, they may be the next class. well, the things, when I say, what I didn't know is really what it dives into now, of course I've been in the game for a long time. Um, but however, what I did not know, and I'm not very, very well versed in, I should say is really things around the service portal.
And it's architecture. I am not that guy. Um, so learning around stuff like that around the portal, the architecture, and I'm not talking about the simple stuff. I mean like really nitty gritty down to how you architect the solution from the whole usability to the study and the whole nine. So that was a good or eye opener for me.
And then also in different products and how holdings like encryption actually works now. For those who implement ServiceNow know about encryption, you know, about platform encryption. Did you have database encryption? Do you have what they call encryption at rest? Now, for me, I knew some about some, but not in depth.
And that's the type of stuff that I really enjoyed because I got to know that a little bit more intimately and then also have to present a use case study about it gave me that much more ammunition to go deliver to customers.
[00:03:20] CJ: All right. All right. So it, it kind of gave you a deep dive on some of these on some of these, um, areas where you might have had like a cursory knowledge. And hadn't really had an opportunity to, um, to go in and, and kind of dive in before in like a, you know, Some kind of engagement that you might have, um, done done in the past and can gave you the, the excuse to kind of just do a really deep dive and kind of get that knowledge.
Right.
[00:03:43] Donte: Absolutely.
[00:03:45] CJ: Awesome. Awesome. So tell me, um, like in terms of like the, the program itself, like how, how long is it?
[00:03:54] Donte: It was a 12 week program, um, 12 week of actual learning. Um, so each week we had different use cases. We presented on those use cases, uh, to the actual, I would say the, the teaching board, if you will. And we walked through each scenario and then a open forum discussion. So every week we would have that within the 12 weeks.
Uh, and of course you had your individual teams that you had. So we made up, I believe it was something like 12 teams on that, uh, CTA course that we had went through this last, uh, session. And every time we presented every week, we had an open discussion, like I said, and then from there, you know, we would debate, which was really good as tech geeks, as we like to be debate these different scenarios and what people offer to the use case, which I thought was a lot more valuable, uh, for the class.
Because anytime you have people at this level, we all 14, 15 years in, you all have been in seasoned. Everybody have done things, seven waves from Sunday, right? Everybody's done it. But then when you have an actual case study and you're talking about the same thing, not a different customer that you've done before.
And Ooh, what about this? What about that? However, the same thing, and you have seven different solutions that all could work and then you debate and talk about them. Those are really good. So for me, that, what I would say was very valuable.
[00:05:12] CJ: Okay.
[00:05:13] Duke: What would you say was the hardest part about the program?
[00:05:17] Donte: Now believe it or not. I mean, this is me personally. Um, I can present very well. Right. I sound, but when it comes to, I would say presenting the full blown use case on my end, the end of the actual program, you present your entire use case to a, um, an sure, uh, a, I would say a former CTA or CMA member, then they would evaluate you to me.
That was tough. Not because of the questions, but because the preparation, everything you have to do to it, you second guess yourself. I know I do when you're putting it together, you know, that, one's probably the hardest thing for me. And then I would say the second piece, which was hard, was just really knowing about key, different areas.
What I mean by that? Is this, again, going back to, for me, you're gonna hear me say security. Encryption around that whole thing. Again, I'm weak in that area. So for me, that, because I was learning it, not implementing it, if you follow me in that, I didn't have a lot of ammunition to kind of back me up and say from experience.
So when I go to present this information from theoretical and not practical, That's where I kind of like lack luster a little bit, because I like to have some knowledge about implementation knowledge, if you will, about what I'm talking about. And when I don't, it's kind of like, mm, little loosey goosey.
So to me, it, that was the toughest part. Although they would say it wasn't because they think I present well, which is fine, but in my mind, that was the hardest for me.
[00:06:46] CJ: Okay. Okay. So, so those, those conversations, like to me, they, they, that sounds like the, like the bread and butter of the, uh, of the program. Like for someone like me, like I'm man, I, I can read everything that I, that comes across my desk. Right. Like, so I'm I'm, and, and I I'm figure most of us here, you know, have been down the Wiki, um, rabbit hole before, right.
Numerous, numerous times. Right. And. It is awesome. You know what I, the one, the thing that I, that I love about knowledge, right? And the thing that I miss about knowledge was being able to get together with folks who geek out on this stuff like I do, right. And talk through, you know, those war stories and those solutions you've built and those problems you faced and all of that, this sounds to me like in caps, select of that in a program,
[00:07:35] Donte: Absolutely. So as you go through this, like I said, you have your groups, right. Maybe a group five, six, or whatever it is. And imagine doing that knowledge discussion while you're before your weekly meetings, because you're meeting with your teams before. That to me was most valuable out of the entire course.
You know, you have good people on there that you've worked with. You've probably worked on another project with or not, but they all been in the game, like I said before, and then you just get to geek out, like you said, right? Like at knowledge. So we're just talking about it. We really times a lot of sessions we had where we had to like stop because we're at time because we're just going, going, going, going, and going about a topic, you know, how you geek out it.
And it just didn't end. And it was like, oh wow. And really a couple times. We scheduled outside calls and just had like a 30 minute, let's continue to geek out about this many, um, of my teammates will come to our team and we still kept our, uh, team's channel open. Actually, we actually talked back and forth about solutioning that they're doing today.
So that to me was probably the most valuable out out of that. So that was a really a good, good part of that.
[00:08:45] CJ: Yeah, man, that that's. That's great. So if, if you were to compare this to like something like a, like a college course or, or something like that, like, would you say this, like this compares to something that you might sit through in college or is this like, um, compared to a bootcamp or is this just experience just something completely and totally D.
[00:09:07] Donte: Um, if you were, I would, compared to college, I would say. A college certification. It gives you the information to that level. Um, Um, also, and, you know, and of course the testing and all that, the present presentation layer of it, the same as well. Um, I wouldn't give it a bootcamp. I wouldn't say that. Um, bootcamp sometimes I feel like I'm drinking through a fire hose, but if you take it a step back, if you are a new person into this.
Then absolutely. I could say you could give it that feel, but if you are a experience in this whole thing, then you are definitely not in that at all. Right. You don't even have that kind of concept about a bootcamp.
[00:09:53] CJ: So, so that's a good question. Like you mentioned, uh, just now new between experience, like how much experience do you think a person needs to have in order to, to sit through this? I know there are some like some certification requirements and things of that nature, right. Which you can kind of self-study through and, you know, kind of, if you, if you're determined, kind of stack those pretty quickly, but how much field experience do you think a person really needs to have before they start to consider their certification?
[00:10:18] Donte: I really don't wanna give it a number
[00:10:20] Duke: I'll That.
one thing too, like not only just what do they need, but what should they have for field experience?
[00:10:27] CJ: Yeah,
[00:10:28] Donte: a great, now that that's it that's it right there. What they should have is really practical implementation. Or supporting a, you know, basically implementations from that perspective. This is in my mind. Now, if you don't have that understanding of like really implementing solutions and ServiceNow, and not just from a developer perspective, you need to be architecting and designing solutions.
Not just out box, but really from requirements, right? That is the key we can, all, anybody can design a custom application, right? We could take it. I mean, ServiceNow makes it very easy. Given your requirement. I can give you a workflow and a table when you're done, but what we're talking about is really somebody laying bare.
Hey, I need to do these requirements. They're not talking about ServiceNow. They're just talking about requirements of what they need to be able to do in their organization. Then from there, you'll be able to say, okay, within ServiceNow you need, uh, I T SM it BM HR SD these integrations, and this is how you're gonna do it.
And what else do you need? Oh, you have some GDPR requirements. What does that mean? Okay. Let me help you do these five things within a, you know, ServiceNow platform from a platform security perspective. If you cannot. At least understand that level. You're gonna really not be able to do this course right now.
We can talk about the certifications. Of course you need your app dev your C CSAs and, and implementation cert. Yeah, that's all good. But don't run out and get those. As a two year person in and think you come to CTA and just kind of go for it. Now there's some people that may be able to do that. I'm not gonna say that they can't, but really having that practical experience.
And again, being able to give solutions from a perspective from requirements and I'm again from just a base requirement, not ServiceNow to translate it to what they should be doing in ServiceNow is the key experience. If you're not doing that. And I know I said it again, but if you're not doing that, it's gonna be tough.
[00:12:28] CJ: Okay. I mean, this definitely sounds like it's not for the faint of heart. Right. , you know, sounds like, like this is something that, you know, that folks need to really, you know, consider like where they are in their career and what they've been doing. And then, you know, before they, um, Before they decide to take this, this jump, right?
Because it, it is something that, it sounds like, like it's something that requires you to have had, you know, some experience doing, thinking out of the box around the surface now platform and putting things together across that. So. Awesome, man. It sounds like a, yeah, this sounds like a great accomplishment.
Go ahead, dude.
[00:13:04] Duke: uh, I was gonna say, Dante, I've always known you as like a, a hardcore, like ITBM and GRC talent on top of everything else. Right, But , but I'm wondering if there's anything like coming, not coming at it from a, from a, uh, like you didn't have a ton of experience in. Encryption right.
Or security. So coming at it from something that you did have mastery already, like, was there anything that you learned even coming at it from a master, from a master's experience?
[00:13:35] Donte: I would say yes, in, in, in this sense, um, because not just in the CTA, you're talking about solutioning and things of that nature, they also help you work on some of those soft skills, like presentation, um, PowerPoint. I mean, we're doing simple stuff. Like I don't mean simple stuff we're doing, you know, base soft skill things like presenting.
Like, how should you present this information? How to give the best information in a slide and how to present that in a way that you, as a consumer of that slide can take information away. So, absolutely. But when it comes to products, specific product knowledge, I would say for the most part. I was good almost on all the areas.
Again, as much as I've been in the game, you know, I was pretty decent on when it comes to what could be done in specific areas when it comes to, uh, I T SM ITBM GRC, even HR for that matter. Um, and I spoke on the ones where I was a little weak at, but when it comes down to it, It really, you know, for me, if, if I was brand new, like to a certain area, I would've got some information.
Um, but not full depth of knowledge, I would say. Right. Security because we're talking about platform again. I wanna be clear platform security, not sec ops, not security and instant response. We're talking about platform and security.
[00:14:51] CJ: Right.
[00:14:52] Duke: Oh, good point.
[00:14:53] CJ: Yeah. And so I. Kind of, um, keeping on that security, that platform, security track, like, um, and, and that's kind of a tangent and kind of a one off question. Right. But are you seeing a more pronounced, um, uh, emphasis on platform security in the, from ServiceNow?
[00:15:13] Donte: Absolutely. I mean, as we get more and more into dealing with, uh, federal government contracts, as we get more into things that just in general, just getting more secure. I mean, we're getting, uh, if you look at service now, like in the San Diego release and even releases before this, right, they're starting to get more and more into more.
More security, uh, elements and products around there where we're talking about the database encryption, where it's actually encrypting at rest. I mean, that's huge for somebody been in the game for a long time. Like I have that wasn't there for a long years ago. This just wasn't there. And they lost a lot of, uh, customers.
By not doing that. Right. But now as you move more into this, especially into the federal space, it's almost a need, not just having a government cloud, but we need to be able to encrypt this data to ensure that, and not just as it comes through in translation, but we need to have it at rest as well. So as you get into the different, you know, um, I would call them, uh, Policies and things of different, uh, organizations, different, uh, countries that is, you know, you're talking about a whole different type of security policies that they have in place that are not us based.
So we gotta be able to handle all those different factors. And that's where ServiceNow is kind of moving towards more of that. So they can actually get that business.
[00:16:33] CJ: Awesome. Yeah, I know. There's, uh, just a huge. Consciousness lately around security and, and encryption, um, largely for negative reasons, right? Like a lot of, uh, ransom word and things like that have really kind of, uh, got the, the word encryption into a lot of folks, common lexicon, uh, and not, you know, from the perspective of them doing the encryption.
Right. But having it done you, so, yeah. Kudos to service us now for, you know, jumping into this and really making sure that they're securing the data for folks.
[00:17:03] Donte: absolutely.
[00:17:04] Duke: you think there's any misconceptions out there about the CTA program, what it is and what it's for.
[00:17:09] Donte: Yeah, I do. I think the biggest thing is that you had the CMA and the CTA. Um, and I think a lot of people think it's a watered down version of the CMA. It's not, um, it's definitely a good program. I don't think it's watered down by any means. Uh, but I think it does have a place for those like me who doesn't wanna so far into, um, uh, what I like to call, well, let me just take a step back.
I'm a hybrid guy. Right. And I won't say I, I say I was rare, but I'm one of those guys who love to. Actually talk about requirements. So I'm like the BA, then I wanna take those requirements and I wanna design the solution. Then I take, put my architect hat on. Then I wanna turn around and I, I may wanna be part of the implementation then I want to develop.
So for someone like that, the CTA was perfect because I don't wanna just live all the way. Like I'm just gonna help you design and, and put it on for, give you a PowerPoint, give you a document, help you, you know, put the actual governance in place. That's not all I want to do. I actually want to be technical.
Right. And that's where this, I was like, this program is for me because that's where I live. That's the space I've been playing in for the last 15 years is I want to do the full spectrum. I want to be the Swiss army knife to where, if you need me to just come into code, I can do that. If you want me to come in solution, I can do that.
If you need me to design an architecture and help me put a governance board together, I could do that too. So that's where this program helped me.
[00:18:35] CJ: Man you're speaking my language, dude. like, like seriously, like that's where I live too. And that's, and that's what I enjoy. Right? Like I enjoy doing the whole solution, you know, soup the nuts. Right. I enjoy being able. Were to go in and, and present to like your C-suite or, you know, your, you know, to the, your major stakeholders. And also like when that thing is done, you know, an hour after lunch going in and coding the actual solution.
Right. I, I enjoy right. You know, I, I, I like having my hands in all of it and, and, you know, massaging it all the way through the process. And sometimes you don't do all of it in one project. Right. And you get bits and pieces here and there. You know, but I, I like, I don't ever want to just be like the, you know, the, the business guy, right?
Like you're where the only thing you're doing is this, these diagramming out a solution and, and giving the pitch. Right. And I don't only ever want to be like the tech guy where the only thing you're doing is doing the dev. Right. Like, I, I, like, I find that there's so much value and then there's also so much, um, Intellectual, um, fulfillment for me combining those two and, and using that for, um, for, for value for my clients.
So, yeah, man, we we're right there together.
[00:19:49] Donte: Absolutely.
[00:19:52] Duke: So knowing how that you haven't been through, uh, the certified master architect program or have you
[00:19:58] Donte: I have not.
[00:19:59] Duke: okay. But do you think there's any kind of good litmus test for people who are aspiring forward? Like whether you're the kind of person who should go through certified master or certified technical.
[00:20:11] Donte: Now, this is just pure. Again, I haven't went through the program, so I wanna make sure I do that. Disclaimer. um, but from what I understand, the CMA program is a lot more intense. Um, so not saying it's bad, but for those who aspire to go to the CMA, I definitely say do it. I mean, because again, I wanna live in the space that I play, like Corey just said in that middle layer, right.
I wanna be able to be all those different ones that still be technical. Right. For those like, to just fully go into the full immersion of an actual master architect where they wanna be just that architect and actually design solutions and for implementations and more. And I think that's fine. So I think that's just, this depends on the actual personal decision of whether or not, which track you pitch pick, excuse me, which I believe that's why they have the CTA and CMA one.
It could be a stair step and then two, it could be a decision tree, whether you wanna go to either one.
[00:21:10] CJ: Yeah. Yeah. And I was so happy when I saw the CTA unveiled. Right. I didn't, I didn't know about it. And all until I saw folks start to post on LinkedIn that they had gotten certified. And I was like, what's this new thing. Right. They went Googled in it. I was like, oh, that's the one. Right? Like that's where, that's what I need to do.
You know? Cause I, I looked at the CMA and man, it, it felt a little bit too much like school for me, man. And I was like, I don't wanna do six months of this thing. And, and that's not to knock the folks who have done it. Right. Like I think those folks, you know, are, are, uh, are, are, you know, are great and they have a skillset that they want to bring to bear and, you know, and they, and they've, and they're gone through this program to get, you know, to get that recognized.
And I think that's amazing. Right. And I, I don't knock anyone who has that, who has that ability to do that. But, you know, the way my attention span is up like, ah, yeah, much more CTA, three months, let's do that. So, uh, Dante tell, tell us a little bit, uh, about what you're doing right now at, uh, at ServiceNow.
[00:22:11] Donte: At ServiceNow, I'm a principal platform architect. Uh, now that's funny, right? Cause I'm just CTA which goes right in hand in hand, hand in hand in what I'm doing. Um, so really what my role consists of is helping clients to see the best in leading practice from out of box. Also help them understand.
What they could do for any solutions that they may have that not, not as a, within our product suite, and then also understanding, maintain their health of the entire environment. So that way, once things go awry, we're watching them from a, a standpoint of, Hey, your performance is not looking good. Hey, your manageability is not looking good.
Hey, your upgradeability is not looking good. And I make sure that they maintain, you know, scores in a good, I would say, above 80, 90 percentile to make sure. Uh, that they're doing well with their instance. So that's number one, two, and three, and then lastly, help them design out their architecture. Right.
Overall, how are we implementing ServiceNow? How can we move forward from a technical governance perspective from a overall technical architecture's perspective? And then lastly, from the instance health perspective,
[00:23:19] CJ: That technical governor's perspective. That's interesting to me. Um, I keep trying to sell clients on this. Um, and whenever I do CMDB implementations, I, I always, uh, insist on doing a, uh, governance board, right. Because I feel like CMDB, um, is as much off. Off platform as it is on, right? Like you in, in order to ensure that you've got accuracy and you know, you don't have stale data and that the data remains, um, useful over time, right?
Like you need a governance board to ensure that all of these key, um, key off, off platform, things are happening. Um, whenever I try to in, you know, to it, to, um, to work with clients on seeing the need for governance of the entire instance above and beyond. Moving update sets, but I, I, I, I feel I don't, I, I don't typically get, um, really good buy-in on that.
Like they, they don't see the value. Can you, can you share some tips, tips, and tricks on how you get clients to kind of see that value?
[00:24:21] Donte: Well, you, you know, it's tough. Um, but I think the biggest thing where I go for buy-in is. When I go for buy-in for technical governance. I mean, it's really just helping them to see the end result. Sometimes they, the setup for them is the pain, right? They, they all the pain. Oh my God I have to do is I have to do that.
And for me, what I tell 'em is I say, look, you're already doing part of. Right. So when it comes to just governance boards alone, you have your executive board, whether they establish it or not, they have it. That's the one who writes the check, right? they're there. They're gonna make a decision. Whether we buy something or not.
Right. Then you have the technical governance, which I think is just as key. Somebody needs to maintain these products. Now it's not just ServiceNow. You probably should do it for all your other products, but let's just talk about service. Now you spoke on C to B, which is very vital. To every part of the platform.
And if you don't have any type of governance around what you do, right. And we're talking about, you set up your governance boards, where you have your demand, your incoming, what are we trying to do this year next year, this month, next month, right? Who can approve those things that we're trying to do? And ultimately, what is the outcome?
Now? You have those things really that's what you want, but if you don't have a way to govern it, you're gonna lose because then you're just putting out fires. Right. You're just a fireman at that point. Okay. What's on fire. Okay. We don't have a way to manage bridges. Oh, doesn't service now have a Mim. Yes, no.
Okay. Implement that. You know, now you have way implementing things because you're putting out a fire instead of doing it strategically. Right. And if you have that board, you can help see the future. Right? If you don't see the future and know where you're going, you don't have a good architecture. You don't have a good roadmap.
And in the end, your executive sponsor stopped investing in service now, or any product that you may have for that. So that to me is really the selling point. If you want these things, then you need to be to invest in governance. But if you don't invest in governance, Then you might as well say we're only doing what we're doing for this implementation for search.
Now, after that we're gonna spend and waste money on things that search now do outta the box that you may not have to pay for. I know I got a little soapbox there, but little passionate about governance.
[00:26:32] CJ: man. Preach.
[00:26:33] Duke: That's what, that's why we got you here. we love the soap boxes. Bring your own soapbox.
[00:26:39] CJ: Hey, man, I'm over here, man. I'm dabbing at the eyes right now, man, that brought some tears to my eyes over here.
[00:26:50] Donte: you know how its
[00:26:51] Duke: around for a clean
[00:26:53] Donte: exactly. Exactly.
[00:26:56] Duke: Can we, well, I, you said something in there and I thought maybe we can go full controversial here. Um, cause you said the C to B is so essential for every other process on service now. Right? So talk to me like I'm a customer and why is CMDB essential for ITBM?
[00:27:15] Donte: Oh, this is great. Okay. So I'm gonna speak
[00:27:19] Duke: oh,
[00:27:21] Donte: you know, I'm, I'm ready for this one. So when it comes down to ITBM and the C B B. A lot. Think it's not really necessary. Right. Um, and the problem statement I'll give you is this, they'll say to me, this is what I get all the time. You know, Dante, I wanna roll out ITPM we wanna manage projects.
We wanna manage our demand and we wanna make sure we're doing good. We bought our projects and our demands and we wanna do financials, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I say great. No one. Okay. So how is your C NDB? Uh, really. So then you're saying you're gonna manage products. Yes. You're gonna manage your backlog.
Yes. So how are you gonna do that when you don't know what they are? And then they come back to me and says, well, we know what they are good. Let's put 'em in CMDB. These are applications or business applications or business services. So how about, I don't know for, for grants, let's start talking about your business services, your application services and your business locations.
When you're talking about CSDM right. A common service data model, let's get your data model out there for your products. Right. We don't need to do boil the ocean and try to do the whole thing, but let's at least when we are talking about ITBM, let's get your products you have in house and your company, which could be your business apps.
Like I said, your applications, your business service is, and maybe you don't have business services yet, but you have business applications and you have application owners, do you not? They say, yes. Great. Give me that data. Do you know, this lives in the TMDb and then when they understand that it does, and this says, well, how does this work with demand?
I'm glad you ask, because then from there you take those applications. And now I build my backlog to those applications and I have my teams who support development and operations and all that. We're now live in those demands. That may produce enhancements and or stories and or defects, which may come out of incident management.
So your life cycle of incident could be, I have an incident that became a defect that now needs to be a story because it comes outta a later release. Now that's all tied to a product or an application. We could talk about APM a whole another time, but that becomes an, a product, you know, a story for an application that you now can see in a dashboard and say, what is my backlog for?
You know, I don't know, ServiceNow ITBM what is my backlog for Oracle? What is my backlog for SAP? What is my backlog for Salesforce? I know what that is. Not just as a business owner application owner, but as a stakeholder and as executive stakeholder, they can say, where am I spending my money? Where's development going?
Oh, it's all here. Okay. Where's my roadmap. While I can have that for you too. And you can start developing out your features and ethics and all this fun stuff. Now you see the full value without it. You see 25% value. That's a Dante math for you. 25% value you don't see any more of it. So that that's pretty much my answer.
[00:30:15] CJ: Yeah. Two snows, two soap boxes in a row. I'm loving it.
[00:30:23] Duke: Call the warehouse. We need more soap boxes out here.
[00:30:29] CJ: I gotta tell you, man. I, so I love the, the focus right on the, the consultative approach. Right. And the focus on the holistic, um, application of the, uh, the holistic application of the application to the entire business, right? Like from all the way from, you know, the folks who are building things on it all the way up to your executive stakeholders, right?
Making sure that everyone's got the proper level of insight that they need in order to get their job done and to show the value of the platform. Like, I, I just don't. You know, there's not enough focus of that out there. Um, from what I come across, like whenever I come across a client, I'll, I'll be honest.
And I, and I really, I mean, it works okay because I end up, you know, going on like a spill, you know, pretty similar to yours, not quite as good. And, um, you know, where I kind of talk about that value, like, you know, soup, the nuts, you know, for those folks in the room all the way from all the way up to of the stakeholders.
Right. And, and, you know, it's, and then they open their eyes to the, to the potential, the platform they're spending a lot of money on this thing. Right. Nobody's caring about them. I feel like, you know, if, if you're out there and you're listening, right. Like, and you, and you're engaging with these folks, man, consultative approach, Google it like, I mean, you, you gotta, you gotta show these folks in love.
They're that's, they're the ones right in the check.
[00:31:45] Donte: That alone will get you more success on an engagement. Then any developer will and I don't, I'm not dissing development. Development is, is definitely key. I'm not dissing it at all. What I'm saying is when you make the executive, let's be very clear. The person writing the check comfortable and their needs met.
You won cuz everybody else is coming. When they say we love. This company X who's doing our ServiceNow implementation. They made me feel like my needs are met. It checks all my boxes and then all that comes down. Everybody else is in line. They're gonna be happy because they're happy executive happy. Now we've the stare down and we do the next team.
Yep.
[00:32:27] Duke: I feel like there's five episodes. We gotta squeeze in Right. here. Corey Cause doesn't this kind of go in with the whole, like, you need the field experience and you need to be an excellent storyteller because it's just like so many people are like, I want to build as per requirements, but you can't and have that as per requirement conversations with the executive level. right.
[00:32:49] Donte: No.
[00:32:49] Duke: the higher you're up in the food chain. They wanna have a collaborative, like, you know, discussion. Yeah. exactly. And a collaborative one. Cause they're gonna be like, well, what have you seen out there? that's.
gonna help me out for all this money I'm spending, you know what I mean? And those people too, are they, like, they don't care that they're, they don't care that they're deploying service now.
They don't. I mean, it's, it's awesome that they are, but it like, if you, if you just came up with this other. Product tomato, pay.com or whatever. And you know, this was gonna solve all their problems. All they care about is their outcomes. They'll sign another product in a heartbeat. If they think they get better outcomes,
[00:33:27] CJ: That's it. A hundred percent. A hundred
[00:33:30] Donte: is on
[00:33:31] CJ: I mean, that, that, I mean, that's,
[00:33:33] Duke: where are all those extra soap boxes?
[00:33:39] CJ: man. I mean, I mean, when you, when you really dive into this and this is what it's about, right? Like this is, it is about solving problems, right. And you're solving problems for, to people writing checks and, and they don't care. Like you said, duke, they don't care what product is solving that problem. They just care that the problem gets solved.
Right. And so when you come in pitching, you need to be pitching the, the solution, the problems they don't get. They don't know what a script include is. Right? Like that's, that's, it's, that's just a tool. That's a tool in your toolbox, right? Like plumbers comes to the job, they've got all kinds of wrenches and, and, and whatever the hell else they got in that box, man.
I don't know. All I know is my, I told it better not leak when they leave.
[00:34:22] Duke: Yeah. And it.
they, what they also don't want to hear too. Like at some point in the, in, in the deployment, you do have to have these conversations, but again, when you, when you're aiming to make the check signer happy, you don't walk into a room and say, okay, we're deploying ITBM. What are your requirements?
[00:34:38] CJ: Right.
[00:34:38] Duke: half the time they haven't even seen what the product does. You know what I mean?
[00:34:43] Donte: Oh man.
[00:34:44] Duke: you've gotta kinda like, yeah. Right. You feel my pain downtown.
[00:34:50] Donte: Man. Listen, if I could just say this, I'm, I'm giving the other, I'm building me another soapbox as we speak. Listen. The biggest thing or one of the biggest things that you need to do when you're talking to executives and talking about what are their requirements. When you walk in that door, if you're not asking them, what is your problems?
You've lost. Okay. I don't, you know, we all talk about it. I mean, we've hear this time and time again. Use cases. Give me your use cases. That's all good, man. I mean, it's good. Everybody has a use case. ServiceNow will do all their use cases. Most of the time, I'm say 85, 90% out of the box. Okay. We're done. I'm just gonna plug it up.
There you go. That's not what they want. They're gonna, I always ask them, like, for example, what are you reporting on? What do you need to see out of service now at the end of the day to make sure incident successful? What that D what does that dashboard look like to you? I always ask them that I, I, I, a lot of times people think I'm crazy.
I, a lot of times in some implementations, depending on who I'm talking to, right. Depending on customer that is sometimes I'll say. Show me what you're reporting on. If you have it, because they'll start with a report problem and you, and I'm pretty sure you've seen this. They'll say, look, we're trying to get this, this or this.
I just need to be able to show the executives that I we're doing well as a team. And I know we are, but I can't tell them because the, the, the, the product we have is inadequate. Okay. Show me your report. I'll tell them, give the report. We haven't even talked about a table yet. We didn't talk about a field yet.
Now, if I give you that, are you happy? Yes. All right. That's what we're marching to right there. Now we can talk about requirements. That's gonna meet that need and that's what we're talking about.
[00:36:26] CJ: Man.
[00:36:26] Duke: Dude. We're here
[00:36:29] CJ: what I'm talking about right there. I, I like I'm, I'm still in that one. You know, show me the report. I haven't used that one before. I I'm definitely taking that.
[00:36:37] Duke: Yeah. Like just that.
whole idea of like, tell me, tell me what keeps you up at night. Cause if it was all about what's your current use case is what's your current reports? It's like, okay. That's awesome. So why did you spend like six figures? Like if you had it already
[00:36:51] CJ: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
[00:36:53] Duke: you had it ready, then what do you spending the six figures for.
[00:36:57] Donte: exactly. I.
[00:36:58] Duke: They need, they need something else and it keeps 'em up at night.
[00:37:01] CJ: yeah.
[00:37:02] Donte: and 9,010, they don't know what that is. Right. They don't know. They don't know enough to say what it is yet. That's why they pay us right. To come in and consult, like you said, Corey, right. Be consultative, help pull that out of them because they have a problem, but they may not be able to articulate it.
And so with our expertise and this knowledge that we have, we say, well, here's service now. Here's what you can get. And then you start going to, like you said, duke right? With all these different things. A lot of people haven't seen service. Now give them a demo. What's 10, 15 minutes. Don't just dive into your requirements.
Show off the tool they bought it. Let 'em test drive the car.
[00:37:42] CJ: Yeah.
[00:37:42] Duke: Man. I like you're. So I feel like he's just stepped into my body for a week or something like that's, that's where I'm at on every ITBM implementation I've ever walked into. They're like, oh, like we have something installed, but we don't even know if it does what we want it to do. Right.
And it's just like, I I'm on, I, I keep on doing like the, the, the rebuild, the, the re architectures of ITBM things and, and my whole shtick there, isn't, let's sit down, have a workshop requirements.
I'm like what we're gonna do. And not a lot of other partners will do this, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna have like a two week long demo. And we're gonna go through all the things that a PMO normally does, right? Like, do you manage at the portfolio or program level? Do you do budgets? Do you do the cost planning?
You know, like how do your projects get the project tasks into it.
And it's just, you just go like a playbook, right.
[00:38:42] CJ: Yep.
[00:38:43] Donte: Yes.
[00:38:43] Duke: and you go through the entire playbook and. You can tell right away there's stuff where they're like, oh, that's gonna make our life so much easier. It's like, okay, that's a clear win. And you know it at the start.
And then there's other stuff there where it's just, you know what, look on their faces. They're like, uh, that feels wrong. Why? Oh, cuz we do it a different way. Okay. So now it, now we can get into the real discussions that matter. Like, are you gonna change or is this gonna change? Cuz one of them's gotta change.
Otherwise you're gonna feel bad in the future. Right.
So.
[00:39:14] CJ: Right.
[00:39:15] Donte: definitely. I mean, that's how I go into those implementations that I've. If I don't do a demo, like I always do, because a lot of times you come in with a PowerPoint slide deck and they look at it and it's like, okay, we saw this 20 million times. So for me, I come in with the introduction high level we're doing, and then I'm out.
So.
[00:39:41] Duke: Wow. Well, that seems like a good place to break it. We've been recording for 40 minutes. Uh, Dante man, here's what we're gonna do next time. We're gonna just get an extra, extra, extra large order of soap boxes. We gotta you on an episode two.
[00:39:56] Donte: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:57] CJ: Yeah, man, definitely part two of this conversation, I think will be great.
Hey, Dante. So, , for folks out there who wanna get in contact with you, how, how would they do that?
[00:40:04] Donte: I'm on LinkedIn. you can find me there. I think that's one, probably the best one for now would say, just hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm Dante hooker. The I'm probably the only Dante hooker on LinkedIn. That's a D O N T E H O O K E R. Uh don't if you do D a that's not me. So D O N T E H O O K E R. Dante hooker on LinkedIn.
I'm easy to find.
[00:40:24] Duke: We'll have a link for you in the, uh, in the description below.
[00:40:27] CJ: All right.
[00:40:27] Duke: All right. Thanks guys. We'll see you later.