HeQuestions in regards to Demand Management

[georgimavrodiev]

Hello all,

Recently, I started getting familiar with the Demand module of ServiceNow. I am using it on a DEV instance, which runs on Jakarta, Patch 5.
I already went through the documentation in docs.servicenow.com, and also watch the short demo videos of NOWsupport. No matter, the large amount of information I read - I am having some problems understanding the design of the application. Thus, I would like to address couple of questions to you, with the hope that one of you who is experienced and familiar with Demand will be able to provide me with detailed answers.

Firstly, I would like to say that from what I understand, in a real case scenario, the idea behind Demand module is that an employee will submit an idea. Once this happens > a Demand Manager will review it and if he / she thinks the idea is worth - it will get approved > as a result: a corresponding Demand will be created > then the Demand Manager will start working on it, meaning: he / she will populate the respective Stakeholders Repository or will select a Portfolio (to which users will be assigned in order to become Stakeholders for the Demand record) > the Demand Manager will also use the financial information he / she has on the table or will collect such in order to add it into the Demand record > if any Requirements are required in order for the Demand to be correctly processed - the Demand Manager will be again the one to add them into the Demand. Here, the Manager may add also Benefit Plans or Cost Plans. Once all the information is analyzed and the Demand gets scored by the Stakeholders -> it will go through the different phases of it and it will get enhanced to a project, change, defect or enhancement.

Here are my questions (please apologize me if they are a lot):

- What are the 'Source' & 'Owner' fields inside a Requirement record (Request Related List)? Does the user filled into the 'Owner' field is the one responsible for the investigation, to say so, and the completion of the Requirement? I suppose the user, presented into the 'Source' field is the one who created the Requirement itself, right?

- Who does create the Goal of a Demand? The Demand Manager ONLY? I saw there is no owner of a Goal. It has only its states, so the Demand Manager should be responsible for its fulfillment towards the Demand progress?

- What is the idea behind 'Assessment Instances' Related List? Is it useful in the real life and for which situations?

- I saw that the 'Financial return' depends on the value added into the 'Capital expense' and 'Labor costs'. Why does it not depend on the value of the 'Operational expense'? Also, if a Demand Manager initially adds values on all these fields -> the Financial return and ROI will get calculated automatically, but if a Cost Plan gets added on a later stage -> it will affect the Financial benefit (as it is being added for the first time). Where these automatic calculations are being done and what is the formula?

- Could you please give me a real - case scenario of the following: in which phases of the Demand exactly the Demand Manager is being communicating with all the Stakeholders in order to find out the respective elements and fill in the record in order for the associated parties to be familiar with the progress and benefit, details of the Demand? I would like to receive an answer of this question from someone who uses the OOB Demand module of SNOW on daily bases

- Who are usually the Decision Makers? I doubt it is always the Demand Manager. Well, may be he updates the Decisions in the Demand records, but he is not the one who takes them, right?
May I have a real - case example? I would like to know exactly who can be a Decision maker and what kind of decisions can be taken, depending on the Demand orientation, to say so, or better to say: its purpose (final goal).

- Are the Assessment Results being filled in (calculated) only in the 'Screening' phase and are they are being calculated based on the scores given by the Stakeholders?
Where they come from? How are the Assessment results calculating when moving to 'Screening'?
I see, if the Stakeholders do not provide scoring (do not fill any Assessments) -> then the Assessment Results are being default ones (default Assessment criteria taken in consideration with the lack of 'filled in Assessments by the Stakeholders, as if they fill them in - new results will be calculated). I am right?

- Who fills in the Demand Budget and where it is getting filled in? Even a user with it_demand_manager role cannot fill in the Demand Budget Related List, for example.

- May I receive a definition + scenario (short example) of the Allocation Type & the Allocation Spread plus an explanation of the influence, to say so of the Booking Type, which can be Hard or Soft?

Some technical questions:

- If a user submits an idea -> no notification is being sent over to the Demand Managers. They have to manually and on their opinion to check the Ideation module in order to find out that there is / are new Idea(s). I thought SNOW provides such notification mechanism... ?

- If a Demand Manager accepts and Idea and by doing so - promotes it to a Demand -> no notification is being sent over to the submitter of the idea. The same question as the above one?
Do I need to manually configure such notifications in order to create a notification mechanism of my own? Demand module does not provide such?

- If a Demand record gets into the 'Screening' phase -> no notifications with Assessments are being sent to the Stakeholders. Yet, if I impersonate to one of the Stakeholders and go to Self - Service - there I can see that I have an Assessment to take. I've checked all Business Rules and Notifications OOB and they are active and their trigger - requirements are 'covered'. Yet, no notifications are being sent over to inform the Stakeholders that they have an Assessment to take in order to score a specific Demand record. Is this normal or there is a problem with my instance? I guess I will have to create a custom notification also here.

- A Stakeholder user who has the it_demand_user role cannot update the Demand record at all. He may only see it. Is this expected for a real - case scenario? Only the Demand Manager has to be the one updating the Demand record after communicating with the other parties (Stakeholders)?

Thank you in advance, and once again - please apologize me for the large number of questions of mine!
I really find the Demand module for quite interesting and will be really happy if someone provides me with answers of this query so my interest can become bigger

Best Regards,

Georgi

[chaya1]

Hi Georgi!

We do not currently have a full training available for Demand Management, and I agree it would be helpful to have one.

Here are two videos from Youtube and a link to an overview of PPM that may have some helpful content for you.

Trainings:

Here are short videos on demand management:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5885eTmlE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBjuZc3sDs8

PPM Fundamentals

https://servicenow.sabacloud.com/Saba/Web_spf/NA1PRD0015/common/ledetail/cours000000000002386?contex...

[georgimavrodiev]

Hello Chaya,

Thank you for your input!

I would really appreciate if SNOW deliver detailed instructor - led training about Demand Management.
I am sure it will be interesting and useful to a large number of people, no matter its price.

I may say that I am already familiar with the videos you shared.

I guess with practice the answers will come

If you hear something about any SNOW - Demand training in future, please let me know. Thank you!

Cheers, Georgi

[Sean Witt]

Hi Georgi.

I apologize for the delay in responding, January was a busy month...

It has been a few years, and several ServiceNow versions ago, but I am almost positive that when I took the 2 day training class from ServiceNow on Project Portfolio Management, that it included a fair amount of content on project intake (both Ideation and Demand Management). So if you get any value out of the ServiceNow project management functions that come after demand, that class would probably be a good investment.

On your one maybe still open question, the Demand scoring is not totally dependent on stakeholder assessments. Even if your demand has no stakeholders set up, or none choose to complete the assessment, you will still see a score system calculated on the Demand form when it gets to the qualified State. And that demand will also get a bubble with associated scores based on Risk, Value and Size on the Demand workbench. Dragging the bubble for an individual demand will also recalculate those values based on where you drop the bubble on the Workbench's quadrant for Risk versus Value. Some people don't like that you can re-drag and change those values from the workbench, but I think the idea is that you can use the workbench as a tool for conversation around ranking/prioritizing potential new work for your portfolio.

So even if a demand comes in looking like a high value option, in conversation the team may decide to drag it down some based on newly identified risks or some other relevant metrics. Moving a bubble will not change any responses that came in from assessments, but it will reflect the new position on the workbench, so that you can make relative comparisons against other demands.

If you need to dive deeper on the calculation approach for the score, a good starting point would be looking at the "Compute Overall Score" business rule and the "EntityScorer" Script Include. Sorry again about the delay in replying back to you...

Sean

[georgimavrodiev]

Hello Sean,

Thank you for writing me back!

I see the Demand calculations more clear now.

I will give it a go with the knowledge I obtained and will start learning additional stuffs with the work.

Cheers,
Georgi