From Customer to Consultant

Every ServiceNow configuration has a business objective behind it. At most organizations, ServiceNow is the primary tool behind the efficiency of teams from Cloud Operations to Human Resources. When I first joined a ServiceNow development team, I was a recent computer science graduate passionate about business. I quickly became fascinated seeing the ideas of executive stakeholders turn into business operations improvements through my development work. Our team was the go-to team anytime someone in the organization had an idea for improvement.  

During my three years as a ServiceNow Engineer at a customer site, I witnessed the direct impact of ServiceNow configurations on teams from Cloud Operations to Human Resources. One of the most memorable moments was rolling out ServiceNow Event Management. This implementation significantly impacted the engineering team’s visibility into the health of their services, reducing noise from monitoring tools and improving the team’s overall efficiency. In addition, as an in-house ServiceNow Engineer, I could see my development efforts being used in full force by my peers. Every new feature became mine to maintain and manage, and as adoption expanded, there was a continuous need to iterate and scale the solution.

On the partner side, you play a different role to the ServiceNow team at an organization. In one year, you work with over five different clients implementing a different module of ServiceNow each time. This experience is the main reason a client chooses to work with a partner on the implementation. The client team leans on you to guide them based on your experience working with other clients in their sector. Unlike working at a customer site, you don’t always get to stick around to see the business impact that your work has. Therefore setting the client up for success after you leave is critical. At the end of an engagement, the knowledge transfer from the partner to the client is essential to ensuring that the client is self-sufficient with the new ServiceNow configuration.

The journey from a customer to a consultant has been even more compelling because of the environment we built at RapDev. The collaborative culture and exciting projects mean there is never a dull day. Our team constantly pushes the boundaries of what is possible with ServiceNow, striving to get our clients to the next level. We focus on employee development and career growth by pushing engineers to take on new challenges and responsibilities from project to project. No one on our team works in a vacuum. We recognize that we are only as successful as our teammates, partner together on solutions whenever we can, and know that our collective knowledge level is far greater than any individual player. Plus, we really love working together! One of the most valuable components of our culture is transparency. We communicate openly in public channels on Slack, allowing the entire team to stay connected to the business overall, learn, grow, and dive into all areas of interest. In keeping with this transparency component, we encourage knowledge sharing and questions across the team so that new perspectives can be provided on problems we are trying to solve.