OCM: Preparing for Change
Summarize
Summary of OCM: Preparing for Change
TheOCM: Preparing for Changeaccelerator is designed to help ServiceNow Impact customers build change readiness and ensure successful user adoption during transformations. It provides a structured, five-phase approach guided by Customer Success Experts (CSEs) to assess organizational readiness, engage stakeholders, develop communication plans, activate champions, and establish baseline readiness metrics. This proactive preparation aims to identify and address adoption barriers before they become failures, with customers leading the effort and CSEs facilitating through proven frameworks.
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This accelerator is available as part of the Impact Guided+ (Strategic Value add-on), Advanced, and Total Packages.
Key Features
- CSE-Led Sessions and Activities: Includes a kickoff session, organizational readiness assessment, executive sponsor activation, stakeholder mapping, communication planning, champion network design, and ongoing engagement tracking.
- Organizational Readiness Assessment: An 11-question diagnostic evaluates leadership alignment, communication maturity, prior change experience, and resource availability to prioritize risk areas and define success criteria with measurable KPIs.
- Executive Sponsor Activation: Clarifies sponsor roles with visible commitments and builds a sponsorship roadmap to remove barriers and demonstrate leadership support.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Stakeholders are mapped by impact and influence, with tailored engagement strategies and interviews to address concerns and highlight benefits.
- Communication & Engagement Planning: Develops an 8-week communication plan with audience-specific channels, cadence, and WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) messaging to preempt resistance.
- Champion Network: Designs and launches a network of change champions with defined roles, recruitment strategies, recognition plans, and kickoff events to support peer reinforcement.
- Readiness Baseline and Follow-Up: Measures Awareness and Desire through surveys at baseline and post-engagement to track progress and refine messaging.
- Engagement Tracking: Monitors communication reach, event attendance, and champion activity against the plan.
- Final Deliverable: A comprehensive Change Readiness Playbook encompassing all assessments, plans, maps, activation strategies, and engagement results to inform subsequent change management phases.
Customer Responsibilities and Resources
Successful execution requires customer participation from key roles:
- Platform Owner: Oversees the ServiceNow platform, ensuring alignment with business strategy and governance.
- System Administrators: Maintain platform stability, manage support, and assist with releases.
- Executive Sponsor: Acts as the primary strategic contact for ServiceNow initiatives.
- Communication Leads: Create and distribute internal communications.
- Change Leads: Manage the change enablement program.
- Trusted Service Partners: Participate in coaching sessions to support ongoing efforts.
Additional helpful inputs include organizational charts, stakeholder lists, previous change initiative histories, communication channels, adoption metrics, and business case documentation.
Exclusions
ServiceNow does not implement the recommended changes on customer production or non-production environments; the responsibility for execution remains with the customer.
This accelerator provides Impact customers with structured coaching and proven frameworks to build change readiness and ensure successful user adoption ahead of go-live during ServiceNow transformations.
Accelerator Overview
OCM: Preparing for Change helps customers answer the question every transformation leader dreads: "Are our people ready?" through five structured phases. CSEs guide customers to assess readiness, engage stakeholders, build communication plans, activate champions, and establish a readiness baseline — so adoption barriers are addressed before they become adoption failures. Customers own the work while the CSEs facilitate the transformation support with appropriate frameworks and expertise.
Package Availability
What You Get
- Kickoff Session
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- Set expectations on the process and depth of deliverables
- Confirm participant roles and establish the foundation for the engagement
- Organizational Readiness Assessment & Success Criteria
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- An 11-question diagnostic of your organization's change readiness — covering leadership alignment, communication maturity, prior change experience, and resource availability
- Identify risk areas and prioritize focus preparation where it matters most
- Define Change vision with measurable success criteria and name KPI owners
- Executive Sponsor Activation
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- Sponsor role defined with specific, visible commitments tied to each phase of the change
- Sponsorship roadmap built with high-impact activities that signal commitment and remove barriers
- Stakeholder Mapping & Analysis
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- Stakeholders identified and mapped by impact level, influence, and anticipated response to change
- Tailored engagement strategies defined for each stakeholder group
- Key stakeholders interviewed to surface concerns, resistance, and WIIFM opportunities
- OCM Readiness Baseline
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- Baseline survey distributed to measure current Awareness and Desire levels across impacted groups
- Results analyzed by stakeholder group to identify readiness gaps and target messaging priorities
- Communication & Engagement Planning
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- 8-week communication plan with channels, cadence, and owners defined for each audience
- WIIFM messaging crafted for each stakeholder group, addressing concerns before they become resistance
- Champion Network Design & Launch Readiness
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- Champion network designed with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and a recognition plan
- Recruitment strategy built to identify and onboard champions ahead of go-live
- Kickoff event planned with agenda, confirmed sponsor role, and finalized logistics
- Communications Launch & Kickoff Event
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- Executive sponsor announcement with communications on department-specific benefits and advantages.
- Kickoff event delivered with champions introduced and feedback collected
- Champion Activation & Feedback Collection
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- Champions deployed into peer groups with tools and guidance to reinforce awareness
- Early feedback collected, themes identified, and quick wins celebrated
- Engagement Tracking & OCM Readiness Follow-Up
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- Communication reach, event attendance, and champion activity tracked against plan
- OCM Readiness follow-up survey conducted and compared to baseline to measure Awareness and Desire improvement
- Accelerator Close & Handoff
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- Change readiness outcomes documented and reviewed with your team
- Findings and recommendations handed off to inform Managing the Change (Accelerator 2)
- Output(s)
- A comprehensive Change Readiness Playbook, including:
- Organizational readiness assessment with risk analysis
- Change vision with success criteria and KPI owners
- Stakeholder map with engagement strategies
- Executive sponsor activation plan
- 8-week communication plan with WIIFM messaging
- Champion network design and recruitment strategy
- Kickoff event plan
- Engagement tracking results
- OCM Readiness assessment baseline
Requested Customer Resources
| Customer Resource | Responsibilities | Required | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform Owner | Responsible for the overall accountability of the ServiceNow platform. Provide leadership and oversight to the System Administrators, ensure team alignment to business strategy and the ServiceNow roadmap, and is actively involved in the overarching governance of the platform. | ✓ | |
| System Administrator(s) | Responsible for maintaining the stability and usability of the ServiceNow platform by performing application maintenance, managing support for Cases related to ServiceNow applications, and contributing to ServiceNow software releases by delivering configuration tasks and features. | ✓ | |
| Executive Sponsor | Primary strategic contact for ServiceNow | ✓ | |
| Communication Lead(s) | Drafts and publishes Customer's internal communications. | ✓ | |
| Change Lead(s) | Manage Customer's ServiceNow change enablement program. | ✓ | |
| Trusted Service Partners | Attend ServiceNow Impact Accelerator coaching session(s) to understand leading practices and potentially support customer going forward. | ✓ |
Requested Information / Access
Helpful to Have (If available)
- Organization chart for impacted departments
- Preliminary stakeholder list (key influencers, potential champions, and known resistors)
- History of recent change initiatives (successes and challenges)
- Existing communication channels and corporate communication guidelines
- Current adoption metrics or license utilization data (if expanding existing deployment)
- Business case or value proposition documentation for the ServiceNow initiative
Exclusions
ServiceNow is not responsible for implementing recommendations on Customer’s non-production or production instances.