Principle 6 - Command & Control
Command and Control (CC) applies all previous principles into deliberate action to enhance and enrich what you are already doing. It aligns ServiceNow admins, developers, and stakeholders toward the common goal of delivering features and enhancements to ServiceNow as quickly, safely, and compliant as possible.
Package Agility
On demand deployments also require release packages to be flexibly defined so you can pick and choose the list of update sets, apps, plugins, plugin activations, scripts, etc., you want to include in a release package. Being able to quickly and easily adapt a release BOM (and by way of tight integration, deployment payload) is critical to being agile and being able to continually release (progressing forward).
Perhaps another team or department had to change its plan, impacting your release. Instead of delaying your entire release in an all-or-nothing fashion, you select or deselect the items in the release package. Go forward with what can be released and only postpone what absolutely has to be delayed.
Principle of Least Privilege
The principle of least privilege is a command and control best practice in which a user should only have access to the specific instances and levels within instances required to complete their work. It is common for ServiceNow developers to be granted elevated privileges across the ecosystem (e.g., Dev, QA, UAT, SIT, PROD, etc.) so they can deploy their update sets and resolve conflicts.
If you have correctly implemented the automation recommendations in principle 2 (Visibility), the need for elevated privileges should be significantly reduced because:
- The automation mechanics are migrating all the features/enhancements instead of people manually performing this work.
- Continuous syncing minimizes the likelihood that conflict errors will occur in higher instances because they were addressed in lower instances where it is more appropriate for developers to have elevated privileges.
Focus On Systems, Not Goals
Platform engineering focuses on system function, robustness, and improvement, not just the goal of shrinking your backlog faster. Obviously, shrinking your backlog as fast as possible is a goal, but that is an outcome of an efficient system that provides command and control built on top of the other four principles discussed in this ebook.
In his book Atomic Habits, author James Clear said it best. "Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That's the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results." (Clear, James. Atomic Habits [p. 25]. Penguin Publishing Group)
Platform engineering focuses on the mechanics and practices within the system, and the previous four principles provide the foundation of having command and control with speed, scalability, stability, and compliance. What follows next are additional practices that embody platform engineering command and control.
Friction-Free Communication
Friction-free communication and fast-feedback loops are the lifeblood of platform engineering success. Continuous syncing and deployment depend on automation, platform native integration, and cross-functional collaboration. Everyone across the release pipeline shares the same data - no one across the value stream can operate in a silo.
No More War Room Exercises
Most ServiceNow release practices include a multi-day pre-prod release planning meeting. This exercise is conducted to compensate for the lack of visibility, quality, and BOM-to-payload integration. With proper platform engineering practices in place war room exercises can be eliminated.