ABOUT ME

Martin Kohler
cma_badge

Certified Master Architect

Professional Background

I started my professional career over 20 years ago at the global IT Service Provider EDS (later acquired by HP) while studying Business Informatics at the University of Cooperative Education in Mannheim.

My first contact with IT Service Management and the ITIL framework (v2) was in 2006, later I moved into the ITSM consulting space, first as a vendor-independent Management consultant for Compass Management Consulting (now part of ISG), later as project manager for the German ITSM, SAM and Endpoint management vendor Matrix42.

There I had my first encounters with ServiceNow in 2016 from a competitor perspective and immediately became hooked on it.

In the ServiceNow ecosystem

Fascinated by the ServiceNow platform and its capabilities, I moved to the ServiceNow technology partner MobiChord (now Brightfin) who offered applications for Telecom and Cloud Service Management on the ServiceNow store, to work as a Customer Success Manager in implementation projects.

In 2018 I moved to the implementation partner nuvolax with focus on ITSM and CSM implementations as a Solution Architect and practice lead ITSM to be able to work with the entire ServiceNow platform. I gained project experience with other product suites (Customer Service Management, Field Service Management, Project Portfolio Management) and a broader knowledge of the platform capabilities while working in delivery projects and in pre-sales. Supporting customers with applying the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) structure has also been one of the focus topics in my projects.

Several successful projects and go-live cakes later, I successfully completed the ServiceNow Certified Master Architect (CMA) program, the pinnacle certification in the ServiceNow ecosystem in 2021. In addition, I revived and intensified my knowledge in the ITIL framework by taking the ITIL 4 Managing Professional trainings and exams.

In February 2023, I decided to go freelance and I am excited to continue helping customers to get the most out of their investment in the Now platform.

At Knowledge 2023 in Las Vegas, I had my first speaker appearance when co-presenting a customer’s multi-production instance strategy.

Certifications

ServiceNow
  • Certified Master Architect
  • Certified Implementation Specialist:
    • IT Service Management (ITSM)
    • Customer Service Management (CSM)
    • Field Service Management (FSM)
    • Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM)
    • Hardware Asset Management (HAM)
    • Application Portfolio Management (APM)
    • Data Foundations (CMDB and CSDM)
  • Suite Certification – ITSM Professional Plus, CSM Professional Plus
  • Certified Application Developer
  • Certified System Administrator

 

Others
  • ITIL 4 Managing Professional
  • ITIL Foundation v2, v3 and 4
  • Professional Scrum Master I (scrum.org)
  • PRINCE2 Practitioner
  • AgilePM® Foundation

Personal

I live with my wife and my three children (14, 12 and 8 years old) near Mainz in the beautiful Rhinehessen region. When I am not working, I enjoy playing table tennis, cruising with my small motorboat on the Rhine river, travelling with my family and cheering for my favorite football team 1860 Munich.

 

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE
  • Knows how to juggle with clubs
  • Ran the NYC marathon in 2012
  • Was once German champion in artistic cycling

PORTFOLIO

SOLUTION DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE

Do you feel the need of overarching technical guidance for your ServiceNow platform? Or do you struggle to find experienced solution architects for your projects? Let me help you by providing independent architecture advisory for projects delivered internally or by ServiceNow partners or act as an interims solution architect providing an unbiased support.

PLATFORM STRATEGY AND GOVERNANCE

Are you drowning in daily operations and escalations without a chance to focus on strategic topics? I will help you to develop a long-term strategy and establish a governance structure to allow efficient operation of your ServiceNow platform with an established roadmap, measurable value and a clear decision making process.

COMMON SERVICE DATA MODEL (CSDM)

Have you ever wondered what the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) is and how you can benefit from it? I will support you in setting up your business service and offering structure to conform with the CSDM. This will allow you to effectively measure service levels, take better advantage of the ServiceNow products as well as transparent reporting and service costing.

CENTER OF EXCELLENCE SUPPORT

Are you building up your internal ServiceNow platform team? Let me help you with on-demand coaching for the team members and by sharing experience from previous projects and ServiceNow best practices. We will jointly look at what’s new in the latest releases and I will support you in establishing best practices in the daily operations of the platform.

AGILE DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT

Are you new to the agile development process or your development team needs a little jump-start? I will support you in the sprint planning and refinement, help with the discussions with the stakeholders and requirement gathering as well as with outlining the technical solution approach and making customization/configuration decisions.

BACK TO OUT-OF-BOX CONFIGURATION

Are customizations preventing you from updating to the latest release or making use of the latest new features. I will analyze deviations from the out-of-the-box configuration of your ServiceNow environment and help to get you closer to the baseline configuration to simplify upgrades, reduce overall technical debt and benefit from new features more quickly.

INSTANCE HEALTHCHECKS

Has your ServiceNow platform already been running for a while with multiple projects and implementation partners? Would you like to get an idea of the overall health of the platform, both from a technical and a process perspective? I will provide you with an independent assessment of your instance, identify potential issues and help you to apply best practices.

RECENT PROJECTS

Some of my most recent projects. If you have questions or would like additional information, feel free to book an appointment or contact me.

Greenfield CSM/FSM Implementation

Customer: Large hospital chain in Germany

Duration: 4 months

Greenfield CSM/FSM Implementation

Responsibilities: Streamlead for Customer Service Management, portal and platform security. Designed the technical solutions for these products. Conducted requirement workshops and translated business needs into user stories. Directed developers and supported UAT prior to go-live.

ITSM rollout and best practice guidance

Customer: German fashion and apparel company

Duration: 4 months (ongoing)

ITSM rollout and best practice guidance

Responsibilities: As the Lead Architect I provided technical guidance to the internal platform team, assessed platform health after the initial Incident Management rollout and designed the ITSM rollout roadmap and multi-source CMDB concept.

CSM Implementation

Customer: Real estate and property management company in Switzerland

Duration: 10 months

CSM Implementation

Responsibilities: As the Lead Architect I designed the overall CSM solution for high-efficiency customer support. I translated requirements into user stories for Interaction Management, CSM Workspace, Workforce Optimization, and Platform Analytics and acted as central contact for developers and customer stakeholders.

ITSM implementation

Customer: German investment and asset manager

Duration: 20 months (ongoing)

ITSM implementation

Responsibilities: As the Lead Architect I led the greenfield ITSM implementation and continuous improvements. I delivered the design for integrations (e.g., Microsoft Teams, external suppliers) and provided ongoing architectural leadership for process rollouts.

Build Center of Excellence

Customer: Global automotive manufacturer

Duration: 12 months

Build Center of Excellence

Responsibilities: Support in building up the Center of Excellence and introducing a Demand Management process during the split of two global companies. Overall architectural advisory for platform projects in a multi-vendor environment.

CSDM Implementation

Customer: Multinational healthcare service provider headquartered in Germany

Duration: 12 months

CSDM Implementation

Responsibilities: Guidance in implementing a best-practice structure for master data in conjunction with the Common Service Data Model and the requirements from the CSM/FSM implementation project. Initial scope included accounts and hierarchy, assets and contracts from multiple external systems.

CSM and CSDM Implementation

Customer: German IT Service Provider

Duration: 8 months

CSM and CSDM Implementation

Responsibilities: Lead Architect for the initial CSM implementation, define business services, service offerings and application services in accordance to the Common Service Data Model (CSDM), guidance for the platform roadmap planning

Architectural advisory

Customer: Multinational healthcare service provider headquartered in Germany

Duration: 16 months

Architectural advisory

Responsibilities: Map out the decision paper for a single vs. multi-instance structure. Develop the scalable concept for a new instance stack to be used for local CSM/FSM use cases allowing flexibility while still centrally managing the platform.

CSM Best Practice Advisory

Customer: German IT Service Provider

Duration: 12 months

CSM Best Practice Advisory

Responsibilities: Regular advisory for CSDM structure and general CSM best practices including business service, service offering and application service structure, case workflow and best practices and user interface considerations.

CSM Implementation

Customer: German public transport technology company

Duration: 8 months

CSM Implementation

Responsibilities: Lead architect in a greenfield CSM implementation for a global public transport company including building a scalable and flexible target operating model that fits in the overall tooling strategy of the customer.

Best Practice Support

Customer: German Telecommunication company

Duration: 4 months

Best Practice Support

Responsibilities: Guidance for reporting and dashboards on the platform analytics workspace, knowledge base best practices and optimizations and setup of service level agreements. Counseling for integration between ServiceNow and Power BI.

CSM Implementation

Customer: German IT Service Provider

Duration: 6 months

CSM Implementation

Responsibilities: Lead architect in a greenfield CSM implementation for a IT Service Provider including concept for multi-source CMDB setup with IntegrationHub ETL. Overall architectural guidance for the implementation project acoording to ServiceNow best practices.

GET IN TOUCH WITH ME

Please use this contact form if you would like to get in touch with me or feel free to leave a message on my voice mailbox (+49 176 60032119).