Connecting EAP with Collaborative Work Management
Summarize
Summary of Connecting EAP with Collaborative Work Management
The integration between Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) and Collaborative Work Management (CWM) enhances visibility and streamlines planning for Agile teams by unifying strategic program planning with team-level execution. This connection eliminates silos, improves delivery predictability, and ensures enterprise priorities are clearly structured and traceable across all levels.
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Program managers and release train engineers use EAP to define Program Increment (PI) objectives, align Epics, Features, and Stories, create sprints, and manage cross-team dependencies. After each PI, retrospectives and roadmap updates are conducted within EAP.
Product owners and team members leverage CWM to plan and execute sprints, manage Agile stories alongside operational tasks such as incidents, track progress, and conduct team-level retrospectives. This unified workspace reduces context switching and maintains alignment to strategic goals, providing end-to-end transparency for leadership and flexibility for teams.
Workflow of EAP - CWM Integration
- An EAP administrator connects an EAP team to CWM, which automatically creates a new Space and Board in the CWM workspace for that team.
- Existing work items assigned to the team are imported to the CWM Board using Connected Work filters.
- The Sprint Planning view is enabled on the CWM Board, displaying existing work items and sprints automatically.
- Team members must have appropriate CWM user access to interact with the Board.
- Teams can create new work, manage current tasks, and update progress directly in CWM, with all updates reflected back on the EAP Team dashboard.
Creating and Managing Sprints
- Sprints and scheduled work created in EAP sync automatically to CWM and are visible in the Sprint Planning view.
- Teams update work status within CWM as they progress and can mark sprints complete from this view.
- Incomplete work at sprint completion can be moved to the backlog or forwarded to the next sprint, if available.
- New sprints must be created in EAP, typically when a Planning Interval (PI) is defined for the parent Agile Release Train (ART); these then sync to CWM.
- Sprints cannot be created directly at the Agile team level in CWM; they are managed centrally in EAP.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Gain end-to-end visibility from strategic planning through team execution within a single integrated system.
- Reduce context switching by managing planned and unplanned work in a unified workspace.
- Maintain alignment between enterprise priorities and team-level tasks, improving delivery predictability.
- Enable leadership to track progress against PI goals while empowering teams with flexible sprint management.
Enhance visibility and streamline planning for your Agile teams by connecting Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) with Collaborative Work Management (CWM).
Overview of EAP-CWM connection
The EAP-CWM integration enables organizations to connect strategic program planning with team-level execution in a single system, eliminating silos and improving delivery predictability.
Using EAP, program managers and release train engineers can define Program Increment (PI) objectives, align Epics, Features, and Stories, create sprints for teams, and manage cross-team dependencies. After completing a PI, they can conduct PI retrospectives and update roadmaps for the next cycle. These capabilities ensure that enterprise priorities are clearly structured and traceable across all levels.
By linking EAP to CWM, product owners and team members can plan and execute sprints, manage agile stories alongside operational tasks such as incidents, track progress, and hold team-level retrospectives, all within the same workspace.
This connection between the applications reduces context switching and ensures that both planned and unplanned work is accounted for, without losing alignment to strategic goals. The result is end-to-end transparency where leadership can track progress against PI goals through EAP, while teams maintain flexibility to adapt to changing priorities.
Workflow of EAP-CWM integration
- EAP admin connects an EAP team to CWM. See Connect an EAP team with CWM.
- A new Space and Board are created for this EAP team in the CWM workspace.
- Existing work items assigned to this EAP team are brought over to the newly created CWM Board through Connected Work filters.
- Sprint planning view is enabled for this CWM Board where the existing work items and sprints are automatically shown.
- Check team's access to CWM and provide the CWM user [sn_cwm.cwm_user] to all team members.
- EAP team can start creating more work, manage current work, and update progress directly from the CWM Board. See Sprint planning in CWM.
- The team's progress and work status is reflected back on the Team dashboard in the EAP workspace. See EAP Agile Team dashboard
Creating or managing sprints for EAP teams in CWM
For EAP teams integrated with CWM, existing sprints and their scheduled work automatically sync to CWM. These details are displayed in the Sprint Planning view on the CWM Board.
As the team progresses through assigned work, they can update the work status directly in the Sprints section. The sprint can be marked Complete from this view and any incomplete work items can be moved either to the backlog or the next sprint, if it exists.
New sprints for the team must be created in EAP. After creating new sprints in EAP, they will sync to CWM, allowing the team to schedule work into these sprints from CWM.