Abstract
In January of 2021, HITS launched a fully digital gate approval process for projects. A simple workflow in ServiceNow enabling asynchronous approvals replaced an in-person/online meeting every other week requiring participation from 18 approvers or their delegates and a project manager or representative for each project submitted for approval.
Specific areas of improvement:
- High resource demand for the entire gate approval team to be together in a meeting
- Limited HITS awareness of projects launching/going through gate, who approved what and when
- Lack of data on Projects following modified process flow (called tailored paths)
- Inability to gather data on approval turnaround time
Continue what was working:
- Successfully deployed and simple process
- Good cadence
- Well understood process
- Provides support when needed
- Enables collaboration between Project Managers and Gate Approvers
The digital gate review was achieved through the use of Approval records in ServiceNow that are automatically generated for each project on the Gate Review agenda.
Comments
I can attest to the fact that this addition has made Gate approvals so much easier. As a Project Manager, it allows the approvers to ask questions within the approval item and for answers to be provided within the item too. Keeping all correspondence within ServiceNow is fantastic!