ServiceNow is a powerful platform, but like any enterprise system, it requires ongoing attention to maintain peak performance. Over time, even well-implemented instances can develop issues that quietly erode productivity, frustrate users, and create risk. At 4P Metric, we have conducted health checks on dozens of ServiceNow environments, and we consistently see the same warning signs. Here are five indicators that your instance is overdue for a thorough assessment.

1. Slow Performance and Frequent Timeouts

If your users are complaining about slow page loads, long-running reports, or transactions that time out before completing, your instance is telling you something important. Performance degradation rarely happens overnight. It is typically the result of accumulated inefficiencies: poorly optimized business rules, excessive client scripts running on every form load, large attachment volumes bloating your database, or background scheduled jobs competing for resources.

A health check should include a review of your instance's slow transaction logs, semaphore wait times, and overall system diagnostics. Identifying the top offenders and addressing them can often yield dramatic improvements without any architectural changes. Start by auditing your business rules and client scripts, and ensure that ACLs are not performing unnecessary database queries on every record access.

2. Technical Debt from Customizations

Every organization customizes ServiceNow to fit their processes, and that is expected. The problem arises when customizations are built without a clear governance framework. Over time, you end up with redundant scripts, hardcoded values scattered across business rules, update sets that were never properly documented, and custom tables that duplicate out-of-box functionality.

Technical debt makes your instance fragile. It increases the effort required for upgrades, creates unexpected side effects when changes are made, and makes it difficult for new administrators to understand how the system works. A health check should catalog all customizations, identify those that can be replaced with out-of-box features, and flag scripts that do not follow ServiceNow best practices. Reducing this debt is not just about cleanliness; it directly impacts your total cost of ownership.

3. Upgrade Failures or Skipped Upgrades

ServiceNow releases two major versions per year, and staying current is essential for security patches, new features, and continued vendor support. If your organization has skipped one or more upgrade cycles, or if previous upgrades resulted in broken functionality that was never fully resolved, this is a serious red flag.

Skipped upgrades compound the problem. The longer you wait, the more changes accumulate between your current version and the target, increasing the complexity and risk of the eventual migration. A health check should assess your upgrade readiness by reviewing skipped records, customization conflicts, and deprecated API usage. Having a clear remediation plan before initiating an upgrade is far more cost-effective than troubleshooting issues after the fact.

4. Poor User Adoption and Rising Shadow IT

When employees avoid using ServiceNow in favor of email, spreadsheets, or other workarounds, it signals that the platform is not meeting their needs. Low adoption is rarely a training problem alone. It usually points to poorly designed catalogs, confusing service portal experiences, workflows that require too many steps, or a lack of mobile-friendly interfaces.

A health check should include a review of user engagement metrics: catalog item usage rates, portal login frequency, incident submission channels, and self-service resolution rates. Combine this data with direct user feedback to identify friction points. Often, relatively small changes to form layouts, catalog categories, or knowledge article visibility can have an outsized impact on adoption. The goal is to make ServiceNow the path of least resistance for your users.

5. Lack of Governance and Documentation

If your organization cannot answer basic questions about your ServiceNow environment, such as who owns which processes, what change management procedures exist for platform modifications, or how update sets are promoted between instances, you have a governance gap that a health check needs to address.

Without governance, your instance becomes unpredictable. Changes are made without impact analysis, multiple teams modify the same areas of the platform without coordination, and there is no clear escalation path when issues arise. A proper health check evaluates your governance maturity and provides a framework for establishing ownership, change control, and documentation standards. This is not bureaucracy for its own sake; it is the foundation that allows your ServiceNow platform to scale reliably as your organization grows.

Taking Action

If you recognize any of these signs in your own environment, the important thing is to act before small issues become major obstacles. A structured health check provides a clear picture of where your instance stands today and a prioritized roadmap for improvement. At 4P Metric, our certified consultants bring deep platform expertise to every assessment, delivering actionable recommendations that align with your business objectives and ServiceNow best practices.