Prioritizing portfolio plan work in Strategic Planning

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Prioritizing Portfolio Plan Work in Strategic Planning

    The Prioritization feature in the Strategic Planning Workspace allows ServiceNow users to manage their portfolio work pipeline efficiently. Users can add, update, and rank planning items to ensure the right tasks are prioritized at the right time.

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    Key Features

    • Prioritization Views: View your backlog in List, Kanban, and Hierarchy formats. Only items from the Planning Item table and its children are shown by default; integration with PPM is required for broader visibility.
    • Add New Planning Items: Create new items directly from the Prioritization page, based on your portfolio plan configuration.
    • Update Planning Item Details: Edit item specifics and collaborate in real-time to enhance backlog management.
    • MoSCoW Values: Categorize items using Must have, Could have, Should have, or Won't have for effective prioritization.
    • Rank Planning Items: Rearrange the order of items using drag functionality to establish priority.
    • Roadmap Integration: Set planning states to 'Prioritized' to add items to the portfolio roadmap.
    • Execution App Navigation: Open planning items in ServiceNow PPM or Agile Development applications directly from the Prioritization page.
    • Personalization Options: Customize views for the Prioritization page, with settings saved for shared users.
    • Filtering and Reordering: Apply filters for consistent data visibility and reorder columns for better organization.

    Key Outcomes

    Utilizing the prioritization features enables ServiceNow customers to streamline their project management processes, ensuring that the most critical work is addressed promptly. With effective categorization and ranking, teams can enhance collaboration, improve prioritization, and align their work with strategic goals.

    Review the work pipeline for your portfolio in Strategic Planning Workspace. Add, update, and rank planning items so that you can prioritize the right work for the right time.

    Prioritization views

    Prioritization page in Strategic Planning represents your backlog, showing the items of your work pipeline in List, Kanban, and Hierarchy views. For an overview of these views, see Prioritization in Strategic Planning.

    Note:
    The Prioritization feature is available only for portfolio plans.

    Planning items in the Prioritization tab

    By default, portfolio plans show only the records that are created within the Planning Item [sn_align_core_planning_item] table and its child tables. Any records stored in other ServiceNow AI Platform tables aren't shown unless an integration is established.

    Consider that you want to manage projects through a portfolio plan. Project records that are only stored in the Planning Item Project [sn_align_project] table are displayed in the Prioritization tab. But any projects created using the PPM Standard aren't shown by default because these project records are stored in the PPM Project [pm_project] table. To enable their display in Strategic Planning Workspace, set up integration with PPM so that the tables of Strategic Planning are mapped to the tables of PPM.

    The same is the case with Epics created using Agile Development 2.0 and SAFe applications. See Configuring Strategic Planning with PPM, Agile 2.0, and SAFe.

    Prioritization features

    On the Prioritization page, you can perform the following actions:
    Feature Description Example UI
    Add new planning items

    Add new items to your backlog directly from the Prioritization page.

    The type of planning items that you can create here depends on your portfolio plan configuration.

    Sample drop-down list actions showing options to select New epic and New project as a new planning item on the Prioritization page.
    Update planning item details

    Edit details of the planning items, add attachments, and collaborate on them with the stakeholders directly from the Prioritization page to facilitate smoother real-time backlog grooming.

    MoSCoW values

    Categorize planning items using the Must have, Could have, Should have, or Won't have (MoSCoW) values in the List and Hierarchy views. This categorization creates a baseline of priority that you can later use when you're grooming and prioritizing work for your portfolio.

    MoSCoW options for planning items in Strategic Planning Prioritization tab.

    Rank planning items

    		 Decide on the order of priority for the planning items by using the drag functionality to rearrange them.
    Prioritize items to roadmap Set the planning state of an item to Prioritized to add them to the portfolio's roadmap.
    Open the planning item in the Execution app

    If you're using ServiceNow PPM, Agile Development 2.0, or SAFe applications to execute the planned work, you can open the planning items in their own application.

    For example, if your planning item is an epic, you can navigate to the epic form directly from the Prioritization page.

    Open planning item in execution app from Prioritization page.
    Personalize the Prioritization page views

    Change the way that the Prioritization page is displayed so that you can view the information in the format that you need.

    All settings, such as row and column personalization, grouping, and sorting, are saved as the portfolio plan preferences. So, these settings are applied to all the users or user groups that the portfolio plan is shared with.
    Apply filters for Prioritization Apply filters to all the views of Prioritization, Roadmap, or Scoring so that you can view a consistent data set for your portfolio plan. Apply filters for Prioritization.
    Reorder the columns by dragging them horizontally Reorder the position of the columns on the List and Hierarchy view by dragging them horizontally. Reorder columns in prioritization by dragging.