From Excel & PowerPoint to SPM: Best Practices for a Smooth Transition 🚀

[Namita Mishra]

Dear Community,

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several organizations that have grown comfortable — though not necessarily successful — managing work using Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides.

For many teams, Excel has been the go-to tool for project tracking, while PowerPoint serves as the primary means of reporting. These tools have their place, but they often fall short when it comes to real-time visibility, collaboration, and strategic alignment.

Now, as more organizations look to scale and mature their portfolio management practices, platforms like ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) are becoming the natural next step.

But let’s be honest — this shift is not just about swapping tools. It’s a change in mindset, process, and culture.

That’s why effective change management is essential to make this move successful. Without it, even the best platforms can struggle to gain traction.

So what helps teams make the leap from PowerPoint and Excel to SPM?

After working with different types of organizations, I’ve seen a clear pattern of what works. Here are some best practices that can help smooth the transition and boost adoption across your organization:

1. Ensure Visible Leadership Support

What to Do:
This is the #1 success factor for effective adoption of every application, including SPM.

Secure strong executive sponsorship. Make sure leadership is not just informed, but visibly involved—speaking in town halls, reviewing portfolios, and tying SPM goals to business outcomes and promote SPM as the source of truth in their QBRs and other meetings.

Why It Matters:
When leadership leads by example, adoption follows.

2. Clearly Communicate the “Why”

What to Do:
As a human nature we all look for "what's in it for me"?

So it is very important to clearly articulate the reasons for transitioning to SPM such as — real-time visibility, better decision-making, reduced manual work, and stronger alignment with strategic goals.

Why It Matters:
People resist change when they don’t understand it. Connect the shift to real business pain points like version control chaos, inconsistent reporting, and fragmented data.

3. Identify and Engage Stakeholders Early

What to Do:
Engage key stakeholders (project managers, portfolio managers, PMO leaders, executives) and most importantly early in the journey.

Why It Matters:
Early involvement builds ownership and momentum. Identify champions and early adopters who can influence and support their teams.

4. Tailor Training by Role

What to Do:
Design training based on user roles:

• Executives: High-level dashboards and strategic KPIs
• Project Managers: Project creation, status updates, and roadmaps
• Portfolio Managers: Prioritization, resource allocation, and portfolio health
• Product Managers: Using Agile \ hybrid way of managing their work

Why It Matters:
Generic training won’t stick. To ensure users get value from the platform quickly & easily role-specific training is the key. 

5. Optimize, Don’t Just Replicate

What to Do:
Avoid the temptation to copy PowerPoint-based workflows into SPM. Instead, assess current processes, remove inefficiencies, and redesign for automation and collaboration.

Why It Matters:
SPM’s value lies in real-time insights and workflow integration — not in mimicking manual tasks digitally. If you try to rebuild Excel \ PowerPoint in SPM then you are defeating the purpose and still doing the manual work and duplicating the effort.

6. Use Data to Reinforce the Value

What to Do:
Showcase measurable improvements such as reduced reporting time, increased project visibility, or better resource utilization.

For this to be successful, gather the meaningful metrics before you start using SPM. After 6 months or a year (depends on the nature of the metric), you compare before-and-after dashboards or case studies to demonstrate impact.

Why It Matters:
Concrete results build confidence and support for broader adoption.

6. Track Adoption and Gather Feedback

What to Do:
Monitor ServiceNow platform usage using ServiceNow reports (e.g., project updates, dashboard views) and gather user feedback through quick surveys or check-ins. These surveys need to be gathered at regular intervals and more importantly should be actioned upon.

Why It Matters:
Tracking engagement helps you spot adoption gaps early and course-correct before resistance grows.

7. Embrace Continuous Improvement

What to Do:
Treat your SPM rollout as an evolving program. Refine configurations, improve workflows, and roll out advanced capabilities (like demand intake or investment planning) as maturity grows.

Why It Matters:
Success with SPM is NOT a one-time project — it’s an ongoing journey.

At the end I would like to mention - 

• Start simple. Learn. Improve.
• Let your SPM capability evolve as your teams grow in confidence and maturity.

I’d love to learn from your experiences!
What best practices have you adopted to make your SPM implementation successful?

Feel free to share tips, lessons learned, or even what didn’t work — your input can help others on their journey!

Happy SPM Learning!!

Thank You!

Namita Mishra

[prsudhakar123]

Really a good one !! 

[Namita Mishra]

Glad that you found this helpful.

Thanks, @prsudhakar123 & @HeatherD !!