Untrapping Capital: Build A Value Management System with ServiceNow, SAFe, and Agentic AI

Fred Champlain

This blog posting is a collaboration between Fred Champlain and Steve Adolph of Scaled Agile, Inc., the publishers of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and a ServiceNow Technology Advisory Partner. Earlier this year we co-presented this topic at the SAFe Summit 2025 in Denver, Colorado.

Read on to be inspired to use ServiceNow SPM Enterprise Agile Planning with SAFe LPM to identify and eliminate trapped capital in your portfolios!

The Cost of Not Managing Value

Every enterprise has them, the “zombie projects” that refuse to die, draining budgets, consuming top talent, and quietly eroding enterprise value. On paper, they may even look “green” progressing well, deliverables met, and reports flowing smoothly. But when measured against enterprise strategy or customer impact, they deliver little or no value.

PMI suggests that 60% of projects may be misaligned with enterprise strategy, and 37-41% of those projects will fail. Some 17% of large projects have gone so badly that they threaten the enterprise’s existence. In the end, zombies can erode up to 30% of enterprise shareholder value if they do not consume the enterprise entirely.

These zombie projects emerge because of the disconnect between strategy and execution. Once a project business case is approved, most enterprises aggressively manage delivery cost and schedule assuming value. This may have been valid in a slower changing world, however, in an AI-powered, rapidly changing world value will change.

Opportunities can emerge and disappear faster than our decision-making speed and project lifecycle, making it impossible to assume the value is there. It doesn't take much to imagine what happens to an enterprise whose decision-making speed lags behind the rate of change.

In a world of AI powered change, we need to be continuously testing the value of a project and seamlessly reallocating capital if we discover that a project will no longer deliver on its promise. Success is no longer just asking “are we on time and on budget”, but also “is this still worth doing?” This is the essence of value management, a discipline that continuously aligns investments with strategic outcomes and ensures that every dollar, person, and hour contributes to enterprise goals.

Why Value Management Is So Hard

Even organizations that recognize the importance of value management struggle to practice it effectively.

There are four major barriers to value management:

Value is Subjective: Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, value is an individual's interpretation of aesthetics, quality, the urgency of the need, and the perceived benefits relative to the cost of the alternatives. We have generally resorted to using cost as a proxy for value because at least we can objectively measure costs. But cost is a poor proxy for value, because as Warren Buffett clarified, “cost is what you pay, value is what you get.”
Fragmented data: Subtle signals of value, information about strategy, execution, and outcomes, live in different tools, finance systems, project trackers, HR systems, and spreadsheets. Leaders can’t see the whole picture, so decisions rely on lagging indicators or intuition.
Traditional governance: When value delivery falters, the reflex is to add more stage gates, more approvals, and more analysis. These measures create an illusion of control but actually worsen the situation by delaying feedback, decision-making, and suppressing learning about value creation.
Lack of continuous feedback: Most portfolio management models were designed for stability, not decision-making speed. They assume you can plan once and execute faithfully. Even if we can forecast value early in a project lifecycle, the reality is that market shifts, customer behaviors, and rapid technology advancements are constantly changing what “value” means.

These barriers trap capital in yesterday’s priorities, making it effectively impossible to reallocate resources quickly, even when everyone recognizes the need for change.

Strategic Portfolio Management as a System for Value Management and Freeing Trapped Capital

Strategic Portfolio Management is emerging as a portfolio model for value management and is a critical success factor for the modern enterprise. Unfortunately, Gartner reports that only 16% of enterprises were effective at strategic portfolio management.

We present four elements for implementing a Strategic Portfolio Management solution that can free trapped capital at the speed of change:

Detect: Surface and connect value signals across the enterprise.
Reallocate: Redirecting resources quickly when conditions change.
Accelerate: Leverage Agentic AI to amplify weak value signals
Learning: Identify and address the root causes of zombie initiatives.

Building such a system requires both a technological foundation and a disciplined way of working. This is where ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP), ServiceNow AI Agents, and SAFe’s Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) come together.

Use ServiceNow SPM to Detect and Connect Value Signals Across the Enterprise

The ServiceNow AI Platform provides the enabling foundation for value management by unifying data across the enterprise, eliminating blind spots caused by fragmented tools and data. ServiceNow SPM enables organizations to connect end-to-end strategic planning, demand intake, prioritization, funding, execution tracking, and value delivery.

Value signals emerge from all around the enterprise, both internally and externally, and not just in its delivery organizations. Sponsor support, change requests, HR requisitions, customer sentiment, support tickets, market conditions, and a multitude of other indicators all provide signals of changing value. For portfolio leaders, this means having continuous access to both leading and lagging indicators of value. The result is real-time insights into whether investments are moving the enterprise closer to its strategic goals or quietly drifting away.

Use SAFe LPM to Responsively Reallocate Capital

Visibility alone is insufficient because knowing where capital is trapped does not automatically release it. You also need the decision cadence and governance discipline to reallocate it. Where ServiceNow SPM provides visibility into signals of trapped capital, SAFe LPM provides the mechanism to act on them.

SAFe LPM provides the operating model for adaptive strategy and funding, replacing annual budgeting and rigid project plans with flexible budgetary guardrails and continuous flow-based investment. SAFe LPM enables the fast reallocation of capital with:

Lean Budgets: Can be adjusted based on the current needs and priorities of value streams. This flexibility helps ensure that funding is directed where it can deliver the most value;
Lean Budget Guardrails: Guidelines that govern spending while allowing for agility in decision-making. They ensure that investments align with strategic objectives without stifling innovation;
Prioritized Epic Backlog: By prioritizing high-value work and reallocating resources from lower-value initiatives, organizations can free up trapped capital and enhance overall portfolio performance and the flow of value;
Objective Outcome Data: Base value decisions on demonstrable indicators of value and not proxies; and
Epics MVPs: Invest small, test outcomes, stop early if needed.

When implemented using ServiceNow SPM EAP, SAFe LPM ensures that portfolio decisions are traceable, transparent, and strategically aligned. Together, ServiceNow and SAFe transform portfolio governance to enable organizations to respond faster to change.

Agentic AI: Amplifying Enterprise Learning

SAFe LPM opens the opportunity for AI to add a new dimension to value management, not by just automating existing processes, but by amplifying learning. Value signals are notoriously hard to detect and sometimes require the skills of Wall Street analysts for sense making. AI, with its ability to process unstructured data such as emails, tickets, meeting notes, sentiment analysis AI can detect weak signals that often infer delivery risk and value erosion.

Imagine AI agents continuously scanning across projects and systems to identify patterns such as:

Persistent sponsor disengagement
Repeated reprioritization without clear rationale
Declining customer sentiment
Delivery velocity decoupled from value outcomes

Individually, these might seem insignificant. Together, they could signal a zombie capital-trapping project in the making.

By integrating agentic AI into the ServiceNow and SAFe ecosystem, organizations can surface signals of value erosion and transition from reactive governance to proactive detection and prevention. AI doesn’t replace portfolio leaders, instead it gives them better data, faster insights, and the ability to focus on high-value decisions.

Getting Started: Four Practical Steps

Detect: Start by using ServiceNow SPM to visualize your current portfolio and identify misalignment between strategic intent and execution
Reallocate: Pilot SAFe LPM to establish a lean budgeting model and cadence for continuous investment reallocation.
Accelerate: Integrate ServiceNow AI Agents to analyze unstructured data sources and surface early warning signals of trapped capital.
Learn: Treat every decision cycle as a learning cycle. Discover which signals correlate with value, and adapt your governance to prevent zombies before they emerge.

The Financial and Strategic Payoff

In a world where AI is transforming how organizations think and act, the real competitive advantage is not bureaucratic compliance; it’s learning. Building a learning portfolio with ServiceNow SPM, ServiceNow AI Agents, and SAFe ensures that your enterprise can not only adapt to change but profit from it.

Enterprises that practice dynamic value management unlock trapped capital, improve decision quality, and accelerate strategy execution by shortening planning horizons, compressing decision cycles, resulting in greater resilience in volatile markets.