How to Align ‘Little T’ and ‘Big T’ in Your ServiceNow Strategy

Most enterprise ServiceNow journeys start with a “thing” your organization is trying to implement or solve, meaning, your CMDB is on fire, or the new CHRO wants to stand up employee onboarding, and so you call a rep, who calls another rep, and you go into scoping, contracting and implementation.

Don’t get us wrong, a major, “on fire” issue is a perfectly valid starting point, but that’s only one dimension of the platform’s potential. Hopefully, your initial conversation has some discussion around workflows, automation, and operational efficiency. But even that isn’t always a guarantee. 

To fully realize the value of ServiceNow, successful enterprises approach their ServiceNow strategy as a journey, looking at the potential cross-platform business value, the “why” of transformation. But for many, that’s when leaders get nervous. With decades of “digital transformation” experience under most of our belts, transformation is often a synonym for “long,” “complicated,” or “expensive.”

Just as agile, DevOps-style initiatives have overtaken sprawling multi-year projects in software delivery, we’re seeing the same evolution in how enterprises approach platform transformation. Speaking to Channel Insider in October, CoreX CEO, Rick Wright, asserted his perspective on the market, sharing, “The days of massive, year-long transformation projects touching every facet of a business are largely gone, and what is now emerging is an emphasis on shorter windows with a higher ROI. That doesn’t mean we’re never seeing any Big T ServiceNow engagements, but we are seeing the deployment of those kinds of projects change over time.” 

To make sure you’re maximizing platform value, defining your transformation strategy and understanding when to deploy global, programmatic approaches and when to drive “Little T” (more specific, discrete outcome-based improvements) and “Big T” (enterprise-wide transformation) is essential. Furthermore, intentionally aligning when you need a Big T project funded and when to learn as you go with Little T is often what separates a tactical deployment from a strategic, business-enabling platform.

Little T: The Everyday Wins

“Little T” refers to the specific use cases that ServiceNow is typically brought in to address early on: Incident Management, Change Management, Access Provisioning, and Service Catalog Requests, all core ITSM capabilities designed to reduce manual work and increase responsiveness.

These workflows often run on the ITSM Pro or Enterprise SKU, using components like Flow Designer and Employee Center to drive measurable improvements. Teams realize gains such as reduced mean time to resolution (MTTR), lower ticket volume, and fewer escalations.

These early wins are critical. They showcase the power of the platform, build internal champions, and often serve as a launchpad for broader initiatives. However, they come with a common risk: if implemented in isolation, they can recreate the very silos ServiceNow is designed to eliminate, digitizing inefficient processes without rethinking them.

Showing value fast (and quarter by quarter) is not just a boardroom expectation, but rather a realistic goal when investing in ServiceNow. Rushing to prove ROI without a thoughtful approach can lead to disjointed efforts and missed opportunities. Success comes from balancing speed with intention, making sure each win contributes meaningfully to the larger transformation journey. Done right, this approach turns small engagements into catalysts for broader digital transformation

Big T: The Structural Change

“Big T” represents transformation in the broader sense. It’s where ServiceNow becomes more than an IT tool, evolving into a platform for enterprise-wide orchestration.

This level of transformation involves connecting functions across IT, HR, Finance, Security, Procurement, and Risk through multi-departmental workflows, shared data models, and centralized governance. It’s about enabling end-to-end digital experiences that reduce handoffs, increase compliance, and improve business agility.

In short? Where “Little T” helps you drive incremental progress over time, “Big T” transformation is a programmatic approach to redefine how work happens. Amazing if you are the Chief Transformation Officer (or have her ear), but sometimes harder to argue for at the platform level.

Where Many Strategies Go Off Track

One of the most common missteps in a ServiceNow journey is assuming that a series of tactical wins — automating tickets, digitizing forms, implementing modules — will eventually evolve into enterprise transformation. In practice, this rarely happens unless there's a deliberate, strategic throughline guiding each effort.

Tactical projects, even those deep in the operational weeds, still need to be anchored in an overarching strategy. Without that direction, teams may deliver localized value while missing opportunities to scale, connect, or standardize efforts across the enterprise. This leads to inconsistent experiences, duplicated tooling, and fragmented data models.

Equally important is the presence of enterprise-level oversight. A strong governance structure, paired with a cross-functional steering committee, helps ensure that every initiative supports broader organizational goals, aligns with data and workflow standards, and contributes to long-term platform health.

Transformation doesn’t happen by accident. It requires deliberate alignment between tactical execution and long-term strategic intent.

Aligning the Two

Bridging the gap between task-level execution and enterprise transformation requires ongoing strategic alignment. The most successful ServiceNow initiatives don’t just automate processes; they embed each improvement within a broader, evolving vision for how the business works.

That vision needs structure. Every tactical win should be designed with future integration in mind. That means building on a solid data foundation and anticipating how today’s workflows might scale across business units or tie into broader capabilities.

But design isn’t enough without organizational alignment. Transformation efforts succeed when they’re backed by executive sponsorship that can cut through silos and champion change. They hold together when there's a Center of Excellence defining goals, managing priorities, and setting guardrails for the platform. And they stay relevant when teams revisit the strategy consistently, checking for shifts in business priorities or new challenges that might impact the platform’s direction.

Many initiatives stall not because of flawed implementation, but because they lack the influence, adoption support, or feedback mechanisms needed to sustain progress. That’s why aligning Little T and Big T is never a one-time task. Still, an ongoing process of revisiting the vision, managing the complexity of change, and ensuring every move, no matter how small, serves a larger purpose.

Moving Forward

Many organizations come to ServiceNow to fix ticketing, eliminate spreadsheets, or consolidate tools. These are important goals, but are only the beginning. The real value of ServiceNow emerges when you use it to redesign how your organization works, across silos, with shared data, and with experiences that adapt to people, not just processes.

So if you're automating tasks today, it’s a solid start. Just don’t stop there. Start asking: How do these improvements connect to something bigger? What new capabilities are we unlocking, and where do they take us next?