U.S. Air Force Chief Information Officer (CIO) Venice Goodwine said today she is realizing benefits from the ServiceNow platform as she works to build a “coalition of the willing” in the service branch to harness technology to improve the speed and quality of workflows.
Speaking at the ServiceNow Federal Forum event in National Harbor, Md., Goodwine talked about the expansive scope of Air Force operations around the world, and how her office is looking to make gains in speed of service delivery while at the same time working to adjust workforce culture to welcome more advanced technologies.
“I have to deliver at the speed of products, the speed of mission, how do I do that,” Goodwine said.
“I’m excited to be on this journey with ServiceNow” for intelligent transformation “because in the Air Force, I have to ensure that all of the Airmen and Guardians are doing high-level work,” she said.
“Anytime that I can automate, anytime that I can eliminate … blind spots, anytime I can have processes that are consistent, reliable, and produce results that can be measured, then I have hit a home run,” the CIO said.
When asked about challenges related to scale and complexity, Goodwine said that one challenge involves leading Air Force personnel to “understand that what I’m going to deliver to you is exactly what you need,” and “what I’m going to deliver to you is going to be integrated and is going to deliver to you the results that you actually need.”
One of the keys to that task, she said, is making sure that the information Air Force personnel have “is relevant to the mission needs.”
“So advocacy, strategy, policy, governance, and oversight … those are the things that I do to try to build this coalition of the willing,” she said.
At a high level, Goodwine said it’s important for her to be able to show favorable outcomes from the service branch’s technology use.
“I’m happy with ServiceNow,” she said, adding that the company’s platform has “helped me [to] re-architect” and “actually save me money.”
“That was beneficial because now I was able to build that coalition of the willing, and I was able to build that trust with them as well,” she said.
While the CIO said that improvements to user experience is a vital goal, she also advised to “make sure that you measure the outcomes in which they happen.”
“I had to show by the numbers,” she continued, citing increased efficiencies such as managing projects in the portfolio management module within the ServiceNow platform, and using the dashboard function to help make decisions more quickly.
“And then also there’s transparency – everybody wants to know what’s behind the curtain, and that’s what we’re able to do” with the platform, she said. “So we’re still on this journey, we’re not done yet, but I will tell you today we’ve definitely seen the benefit of using this.”
Asked about advice for others, Goodwine replied, “I love telling stories … whenever I go somewhere and I have a good experience, I can’t wait to share.”
“I tell you that is because when I decided to use the tools myself, and then other people came to me because people are curious, so I will tell you here on this journey, first of all, start using the tool, and then other people will watch,” she said. “Show them the benefit to yourself, then they’ll start to ask questions and the more they ask questions, the more you can” show the technology’s value, Goodwine said. “That’s how you build a coalition of the willing.”
Finally, Goodwine said, “I cannot forget culture” as the Air Force rolls out more advanced technologies.
“I’ve worked on the Federal civilian side as well as the Department of Defense, and I will tell you there” are “differences in culture,” she said.
“When you address that culture,” she advised, start with the knowledge that “there is some fear” of newer technologies especially over the multiple generations of Federal employees, and realize that “we have to deal with each generation.”
