Scoring in Strategic Planning

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Scoring in Strategic Planning

    Scoring in Strategic Planning allows ServiceNow customers to prioritize various planning items such as epics, projects, demands, initiatives, and strategic programs through quantitative metrics. This helps organizations focus on the highest-value work by evaluating and ranking items based on predefined or custom scoring frameworks.

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    Key Features

    • Pre-defined Scoring Frameworks: Three main frameworks are available to prioritize portfolio plans:
      • RICE: Prioritizes items based on Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort. It helps estimate how many users will be affected, the potential benefit, certainty of results, and required effort. The formula is (Reach × Impact × Confidence) / Effort.
      • Value vs Effort: Helps quickly prioritize backlog items by comparing the value (user benefit, business impact, strategic alignment) to the effort (time and resources needed). The formula is Value / Effort.
      • WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First): Sequences items to maximize economic benefit by factoring in User Business Value, Time Criticality, Risk Reduction, and Job Size. The formula is (User Business Value + Time Criticality + Risk Reduction) / Job Size.
    • Custom Scoring Frameworks: Customers can create their own scoring frameworks tailored to specific scoring parameters and business needs.

    Practical Application

    Using these scoring frameworks enables customers to make data-driven decisions when prioritizing portfolio planning items, ensuring optimal allocation of resources and alignment with strategic goals. The clear parameters and formulas help quantify subjective factors like impact and urgency, facilitating transparent and consistent prioritization across teams.

    Next Steps

    To implement scoring in your Strategic Planning workspace, refer to the guidance on scoring planning items, and consider whether the pre-defined frameworks meet your needs or if you should develop custom scoring frameworks for your portfolio.

    Scoring enables you to prioritize items, such as epics, projects, demands, initiatives, strategic programs, and other planning items, based on a defined quantitative metric.

    Before selecting a scoring framework for your portfolio plan, it's helpful to first learn about the pre-defined frameworks available for you to use. Later you can choose if you want to use one of the pre-defined scoring frameworks, or create a custom scoring framework, based on your preferred scoring parameters.

    The following are the three pre-defined scoring frameworks available to use for your portfolio plan:
    • RICE
    • Value vs Effort
    • WSJF

    RICE

    A framework to prioritize and evaluate items by scoring each criterion. It helps teams assess and compare items based on four key criteria: Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort.

    Parameters:
    • Reach- Indicates the number of people or users who will be affected by the project or feature. It's essential to estimate the potential audience that the item can reach. For example, if a new feature is likely to be used by a small subset of users, it might have a lower reach score compared to a feature that will be utilized by a large portion of the user base.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How many existing/target users within a given period of time?

    • Impact- Measures the potential impact or benefit that the item will bring to the users or the organization. This criterion focuses on the positive outcomes and value that the project can deliver.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How much will this impact individual users?

    • Confidence- Confidence gauges the level of certainty that the project will achieve its intended results. This criterion assesses how confident the team is in their estimates of reach and impact. Items with higher confidence are generally based on solid data, user feedback, or previous experiences, making it more likely for them to deliver the expected results.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How confident are you about the impact and reach scores?

    • Effort- Duration in person months, based on product, design, and development effort. This criterion helps teams understand the relative difficulty of executing. Items with higher effort scores may require more development time, financial investment, or significant changes to existing systems.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How much time will this item require in person months?

    The RICE score is calculated with this formula: 
    RICE Score = (Reach x Impact x Confidence)/Effort

    Value vs Effort

    A framework to prioritize planning items, based on the effort estimate and the value it brings to the users/customers. The Value vs. Effort method is the quickest way to prioritize your backlog items.

    Parameters:
    • Value- Significance of items based on the potential revenue, user benefit, business impact, and strategic goals.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How does this contribute to your goal?

    • Effort- Duration to build the product, including product, design, and development estimates.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How difficult it is to deliver the task?

    The Value vs. Effort score is calculated with this formula: 
    Value vs. Effort Score = Value/Effort

    WSJF

    A framework to sequence items for maximum benefit, particularly useful where frequent re-prioritization is a driver of economic value. This score is based on the relative cost of delay and relative job duration, business value, time criticality, risk reduction, and job size.

    Parameters:
    • User Business value- The relative importance to the users/customers and its potential impact on revenue.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How important is this item to your business?

    • Time Criticality- Identifies how the user business value will decay over time and denotes the urgency to release the item/feature.

      To populate this value, answer the question- How does the item value decay over time?

    • Risk Reduction- Identifies the items that can reduce technological and business risks and enable new opportunities.

      To populate this value, answer the question- What else does the item do for your business?

    • Job Size- Relative duration to complete the task.

      To populate this value, answer the question- When will you complete the task?

    The WSJF score is calculated with this formula: 
    WSJF Score = (User Business value + Time criticality + Risk reduction)/Job Size

    To get started with Scoring your planning items in Strategic Planning, see Scoring planning items in Strategic Planning Workspace.