This post is part of a 4-part blog series: Rethinking Transformation with ServiceNow

1. We Digitised. We Didn’t Transform

2. Iteration: Clean Up the Chaos ← you are here

3. Innovation: When Doing It Better Isn’t Enough

4. Transformation: Rethinking How the Business Actually Works - coming soon!

We’re breaking down the practical steps to get out of the digitisation trap—and start using ServiceNow to deliver real change, not just automation. This post explores the first and most important step: Iteration.

Rethinking Transformation with ServiceNow Step 1: Iteration – Clean Up the Chaos Before You Build Anything Smart

Most organisations think they’ve started their transformation journey—when really, they’ve just digitised the mess.

They’ve moved from paper to digital forms, or from inboxes to ticketing queues. But the underlying problems haven’t changed. Processes are still clunky, approvals still get lost, and users still hate submitting tickets.

Step 1 in doing anything meaningful with ServiceNow—or AI, or automation—isn’t innovation. It’s iteration.

Iteration is about simplifying what already exists, so you can start delivering real value. It’s about removing the friction that slows everyone down.

What Iteration Actually Means

Iteration isn’t about reimagining the whole process. It’s about making what you already have work better—right now.

Here’s what that can look like:

• Automate manual steps: Reduce repetitive admin work like assigning tickets, updating statuses, or notifying teams. These are often the things that waste hours without anyone noticing.

• Remove friction: Look for handoffs, form confusion, approval bottlenecks. Eliminate what's slowing people down—even if it’s “just how it’s always worked.”

• Clean up the noise: Reduce categories, remove duplication, simplify forms, and consolidate catalog items. Make the system usable, not overwhelming.

• Free up people to think again: When the platform does the admin work, people can finally step back and focus on outcomes—not chasing tickets.

Iteration isn’t glamorous—but it’s powerful. And it’s often the thing standing between you and all the value you think ServiceNow should be delivering.

Two Ways to Approach It

1. Focus on the problem

Sometimes the easiest path is to ask: What’s painful right now?

Questions that help:

• “What workarounds have become business-as-usual?” Are people emailing approvals, tracking requests in spreadsheets, or escalating via chat? That’s a signal something’s broken underneath.

• “What slows your team down every day?” These aren’t big architectural issues. They’re little process bugs that sap time and energy.

• “What would you stop doing if you could?” This question reveals tasks people feel trapped in but don’t feel empowered to change.

2. Offer a proven fix

If your audience doesn’t know where to begin, you can guide them with common starting points:

• Catalog clutter? Start by grouping items, modularising using variable sets, and speaking in user-friendly language (not IT jargon). Simpler is always better.

• Repetitive queries? Deploy a basic Virtual Agent that answers the top 2–3 most common questions. You don’t need to boil the ocean—just clear the phone lines a bit.

• No triage process? Use predictive intelligence or routing rules to categorise tickets based on content. It doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be better than nothing.

You don’t need a roadmap to start iterating. You just need to move. Small changes unlock momentum.

Iteration in Practice: Hypothetical Scenarios

Scenario 1: Catalog Chaos

A department has over 150 request items, many of them duplicates. Different teams built forms at different times with different logic. Users are confused. Fulfillers are constantly rerouting tickets.

The fix? A catalog cleanup. Group and consolidate items. Reuse variable sets. Strip out unnecessary approvals. Result: fewer misroutes, faster fulfilment, and clearer reporting.

Scenario 2: Email Overload

A shared inbox receives hundreds of queries a week, all unstructured. No ticketing, no categorisation, no SLA.

The fix? Introduce an inbound email action that creates a structured request, categorises the issue, and assigns it automatically.

No new module. No AI. Just a simple structure where there was chaos.

Why Iteration Matters

“You can’t layer AI on top of chaos.”

That line came up multiple times at the ServiceNow Summit—and for good reason.

AI and automation only work when the process is already stable. If your workflows are inconsistent, your routing messy, and your data unreliable, AI just accelerates the mess.

Iteration gives you clarity. Consistency. Confidence. It’s the base layer every organisation needs before anything smart, predictive, or transformative can stick.

How to Know You’re Still in the Iteration Stage

You might think you’re ready for innovation—but if you recognise these signs, you’ve got some cleaning up to do first:

• You’re managing inboxes, not queues

• Nobody trusts the form library

• Your Virtual Agent is live—but barely used

• Fulfillment teams spend more time triaging than resolving

• Every team defines priorities or categories differently

• You’re constantly building custom logic to work around the basics

How to Measure Iteration Success

You don’t need a scorecard—just simple metrics that show you're reducing noise and increasing flow.

Try tracking:

• Time to assignment: Is routing happening faster?

• Number of reassignments: Are tickets going to the right team first time?

• Form completion errors: Are users submitting correctly the first time?

• VA deflection rate: Are basic questions being handled without human effort?

• Reduction in catalog item count: Are you simplifying, not multiplying?

• Inbound email to ticket ratio: Are manual requests becoming structured records?

  
  

Common Traps to Avoid

• Automating bad processes: Don’t build rules to handle broken logic. Step back and fix the core problem.

• Confusing speed for strategy: Just because something is faster doesn’t mean it’s better. Focus on value, not velocity.

• Over-customising: If you're solving the same problem multiple ways, you’re just adding future debt.

• Skipping the basics: Everyone wants AI and dashboards—but if you haven’t fixed form routing, you’re not ready.

  
  

Voice of Experience

Some of the highest impact work I’ve seen with ServiceNow has nothing to do with complex builds or bold visions.

It’s been about asking better questions.

It’s consolidating catalog items, so users don’t submit the wrong thing. It’s automating the assignment of tickets, so they don’t get stuck. It’s surfacing the real work beneath the noise.

That’s not the stuff that wins awards—but it’s the stuff that makes everything else possible.

The Catch with Iteration

Iteration is fast. Tangible. Easy to sell. But it’s not where you stop.

You don’t transform your business by shaving minutes off a form.

If you stop at iteration, all you’ve done is speed up what already doesn’t work.

Next: Innovation

Once the noise is gone, you're ready to create something new. In the next post, we’ll explore how to move from reactive fixes to proactive design. How to stop solving the same problem again and again—and instead design something better.

Part 3: Innovation: When Doing It Better Isn’t Enough

Need clarity on where you are—and where to go next?

The 3-layer framework I introduced in this blog is part of the roadmap process we run with customers. It’s designed to meet you where you are—whether you’re cleaning up, scaling up, or just trying to get unstuck.

If you want to explore what that looks like in your environment, let’s have a conversation.