Scenario planning in Strategic Planning
Summarize
Summary of Scenario planning in Strategic Planning
Scenario planning in Strategic Planning empowers organizations to create, evaluate, and approve strategic scenarios that align with their goals and business outcomes. It provides a simulated environment to explore different strategic approaches without impacting the live plan, enabling informed decision-making by visualizing impacts, prioritizing items, and adjusting timelines. This helps anticipate potential challenges before implementation.
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Key Features
- Scenario Definition: A scenario simulates a strategic plan allowing prioritization or de-prioritization of planning items using an In Plan toggle, which is enabled by default for items prioritized or done with dates within the portfolio plan range.
- Date Management: Start and End dates for planning items in a scenario are auto-populated based on actual or planned dates and can be updated; approved scenarios record these dates, highlighting any out-of-range entries.
- Scenario Comparison: Users can compare multiple scenarios side by side to analyze goal alignment, trade-offs, and financial benefits to identify the most suitable scenario.
- Budget Setting and Evaluation: Set target portfolio budgets for different cycles (fiscal, quarterly, yearly, or portfolio timeline), and evaluate proposed budgets versus targets along with the monetary benefits of prioritized items.
Scenario Planning Workflow
- Create: Develop scenarios to explore strategic options and outcomes without affecting the live plan.
- Adjust and Compare: Modify and evaluate multiple scenarios side by side to assess differences in alignment and financial impact.
- Approve: Select and approve the scenario that best aligns with organizational goals, updating live plans accordingly.
- Roles: Execution owners and portfolio owners collaborate throughout the scenario planning process to adjust and finalize plans.
This workflow supports iterative strategic planning by enabling safe experimentation and thorough evaluation before committing to a final plan.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
ServiceNow customers can leverage scenario planning to improve strategic decision-making, optimize resource allocation, and better align plans with organizational priorities. The ability to simulate, compare, and approve scenarios reduces risk and enhances visibility into potential outcomes and budget impacts, resulting in more confident and effective strategic planning cycles.
Create and evaluate strategic scenarios to explore different planning approaches. Approve the optimal scenario that aligns with the organizational goals and strategic priorities.
Scenario planning overview
Scenario planning in Strategic Planning enables organizations to create, evaluate, and approve the best strategic scenario that aligns with their strategic goals and intended business outcomes. This process helps in visualizing different approaches, assessing their impacts, and making informed decisions before implementing the live plan. By using scenario planning, organizations can anticipate potential challenges.
What is a scenario
A scenario in Strategic Planning is a simulated version of a plan that enables you to explore a strategic approach without affecting the live plan. It provides a safe environment to prioritize items, adjust timelines, and evaluate the potential impacts of each approach.
As compared to a plan, a scenario additionally has the following:
- In Plan toggle: The In Plan toggle enables you to prioritize or de-prioritize the planning items in the scenario you’re creating. By default, when you create a scenario, the
In Plan toggle is turned on for planning items that have all of the following field values:
- Planning state as Prioritized or Done
- Start and end dates within the portfolio plan dates.
- Date fields: The Start date and End date fields for the scenario are automatically populated based on either the planned or actual start and end dates of the planning items. You can update these dates during the scenario planning process. Once the scenario is approved, the updated dates are recorded as the approved dates for the planning items. If the updated dates fall outside the acceptable range, they’re highlighted in yellow.
For more information on portfolio plans, see Portfolio plans in Strategic Planning.
By comparing scenarios side by side, you can assess the differences in goal alignment and trade-offs between each scenario. This comparative analysis helps identify the scenario that best meets strategic objectives. For more information on comparing the scenarios, see Compare scenarios in Strategic Planning.
Scenario planning workflow in Strategic Planning
Using the Scenario Planning feature in Strategic Planning, you can perform the following activities:
- Create a scenario to explore different strategic approaches and business outcomes. For more information, see Create a scenario in Strategic Planning.
- Adjust and compare multiple scenarios side by side to evaluate differences in goal alignment, trade-offs, and financial benefits. For more information, see Compare scenarios in Strategic Planning.
- Approve the best scenario that aligns with the organizational goals. For more information, see Approve a scenario in Strategic Planning.
- Set a target portfolio budget for each of your planning cycle, which can be for fiscal period, quarter, yearly, or portfolio timeline.
- Evaluate the target vs proposed budget of In-plan items and review the monetary benefit from the prioritized items.
Scenario Planning workflow overview
The scenario planning workflow involves an execution owner and a portfolio owner. The following illustration illustrates how scenario plans are created based on the planned or actual dates of planning items and how the In-plan toggle is adjusted based on the states of these planning items.
For more detailed guidance on using scenario planning to enhance your Strategic Planning process, see Optimizing planning with scenario planning in Strategic Planning Workspace.