PPM Fundamentals - K19 Pre-Con May 5 & 6 - Scott Fabel

[amel_chacra]

Welcome to the ServiceNow Knowledge19 Pre-Conference - Project Portfolio Management Fundamentals!

This is a dedicated Community Article for class communication, collaboration, and fun!!

[Sharon Gaudino]

Good luck with that Eran! There has been a lot of change in the PPS space since 2015! Many organizations did a lot of custom development on the older versions to accommodate their process. Many of those things have now been built into the baseline PPS product. This is an excellent reason why NOT to do custom development in ServiceNow. 

[Sharon Gaudino]

Yes, there are Madrid versions. Both for PPM and for Agile and Test Management.

[Sharon Gaudino]

page 67, step 5 - “Click Update to return to the Project” - this should be “Click Update to return to the Demand.” 

#curriculumerrata #amel

[Fabien3]

Is there any docs about the reporting for idea and Demand

[madhukarkakarap]

yup, but trying to see if i can get a soft copy, as this is great info for further conversations with our stake holders.

[Eran Spira1]

Thanks, Sharon!

Back then, they only had Project so they had to customize it to accomodate for the entire PPM lifecycle... AKA: 27 Project states is not a healthy thing... 🙂

[Eran Spira1]

[Side note, color images for diagrams are far more readable than the black/white hard copy.]

[Sharon Gaudino]

Q: “What’s up with the t-shirt size field?”

A: T-shirt sizing is a project estimating technique.  I believe this came from the Agile Scrum Alliance as part of the origination of the Agile methodology. I’m trying to get an exact reference for this for those who are interested.  Once I find it, I will post it here!

[Sharon Gaudino]

Ideation and Demand Management are both covered in the Project and Portfolio Management Process Guide.

[Sharon Gaudino]

The Demand Workbench is the best visual representation of demands. https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/madrid-it-business-management/page/product/planning-and-policy/concept/c_DemandWorkbench.html

Both the Portfolio and Program dashboards and workbenches include demands AND projects, so while they are not specific demand-only reports, you get visibility to demand records from a more holistic view.

[Sharon Gaudino]

Unfortunately, I was told that we are not offering an option for an electronic copy of the book for pre-conference training. So sorry for the inconvenience.

[swarner]

The ones I can find have 2018 copyright dates.  Should the latest show that?

[Jason Wilson1]

Who has the rights to see the CIO roadmap?  Can you show a filtered view of it to self-serve users?

[swarner]

I'd like to suggest a graphic that shows the general flow and also where the related lists flow in to a demand or project record.  This graphic should additionally which related list records are created as part of moving through a demand and then a project, as opposed to anything that will be pre-created such as portfolios and then attached to a record.  I think this is the most confusing thing regarding PPM, and would be an enormous help in learning and implementing the product.

This would be good not only for this course but also for docs.servicenow.com.

[cfam]

Hello Madhukar,

Chandra Miller, ServiceNow Developer at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union.  We are currently using the PPM suite however, we are only using the following modules: Demand, Project, Resources, Time Sheets, Time Cards.  I've been working with SN since the Berlin release and this is my first time supporting PPM. I am here to learn more about this particular suite of applications so I will be better able to support my users in these applications.

[Sharon Gaudino]

The CIO Roadmap requires either the it_project_manager or it_portfolio_manager roles to view that module.

[Sharon Gaudino]

#amel

[Jason Wilson1]

Is there a way to replicate it as a dashboard?

[Sharon Gaudino]

YES! From the dashboard, there is a Project Management widget set. One of the options is to add the CIO roadmap (both 3D and 2D views). Thanks for asking that question. I didn't realize that was an option until you asked! 🙂

[Jason Wilson1]

Awesome,  If I can lock in the filter this will get me a long way to achieving one my strategic goals for the year 🙂  I feel the bonus dollars rolling in...

[Sharon Gaudino]

SWEET! Who said no one makes money while in Vegas!!??!!

And..you can create custom timelines with whatever filter you need.

[jamesarundell]

Tags may help, these can be edited quickly though the list view. This tends to be my default solution for any categorisation requests and avoids customisation.

[Sharon Gaudino]

Regarding the question about adding an “activity type” field to the task form - there is no field as part of the baseline for the Task table. There is a Type field available on the Story table (doesn’t default on the form, but it’s on the table and can be added via a configuration). The Type field has choices like development and documentation).

[Sharon Gaudino]

There was a question about how to view financial baselines. Here is an article that talks about comparing financial baselines for a project.

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/madrid-it-business-management/page/product/project-management/task/compare-baselines-of-project.html

[Sharon Gaudino]

Great job today everyone! 

Great questions and interaction! Have a WONDERFUL evening and try to get a good night sleep. Tomorrow is a VERY full day.

[Sharon Gaudino]

Welcome back! Day TWO is here and it’s time to get rockin’ and rollin’!

[dennismagnuson]

Enhancement request.

When saving a table template that has a related Checklist, relate the Checklist to the template. If the Checklist has not already been saved as a Checklist template, save it with a default name based on the parent table.

Would REALLY help!!

[Jason Wilson1]

Can you create more complex relationships like finish to start + dynamic lag like the beginning of the next work week or month?

[Kevin Boykin]

Request information on where to find the ADA plug-in for ServiceNow.

[Jason Wilson1]

Just to clarify but I think you can change a manual project to automatic, but you cannot change a an automatic project to manual.

[joebowman]

following

[Fredrik v S]

In the Planning Console, It would be a quality of life enhancement to be able to lock the first two columns (WBS and Short Description) when scrolling horizontally, much like the Excel function to lock the first row or freeze panes. That way, when you have a lot of columns selected, you can still see which row you're on.



So when I horizontally scroll, I am now unsure which row I'm on:

#enhancement

[Sharon Gaudino]

That is correct. You will get a message informing you that you are about to modify your schedule as a result of the change, but it will, indeed, allow you to do that.

[dennismagnuson]

When in the implementation do you suggest setting up the Financial Calendars? Have clients that do a July to June fiscal year.

[Sharon Gaudino]

We usually set it up very early in the process. it’s easy to do and you can set it up for many years out so it’s typically something done up front regardless of what months the fiscal calendar uses. You will need to have a couple of years set up in advance since it is quite common to be planning projects in future fiscal years. 

[Sharon Gaudino]

Two errata/points of clarification in Lab 4.3

p. 228, step #6 - confusion on wording “Drag the Evaluation and Recommendation task bar to 2 days later. Planned duration should show as 7 days” — this is often interpreted as “drag” the task (aka: move the start/end dates) as opposed to “extend” the task duration. May be clearer to use “drag the far right edge of the task to extend it to 7 days” or something similar

p. 231, Step #3 - Start fiscal period: set to the current month, e.g. - FY18: M07-Jul — Suggest to update to FY19

#amel

[Aaron Vinyard]

Note that the Status Reports related list must be added to projects in order to edit a Status Report in the method mentioned in class.

[Sharon Gaudino]

For new PPS implementations, the Status Report is part of the baseline. If you are upgrading from an older version that did not have status report functionality you may need to add the related list.

[Jason Wilson1]

Enhancement request:  We typically will add our project tasks to a visual task board for team communication.  If you go to the task related list to add the task to a visual task board, you have to have already created the task board.  It would be nice to have a dialog here that gives the option to create a task board.

[Amy Wei]

Is Project Status Portal still available in Madrid?

[Angie6]

Apologizing in advance for the spam, but need to test if items are being moderated. 

[Angie6]

Kevin Boykin would like to know if there are ADA plugins for ServiceNow. 

[howardrichter]

Do you need the scrum role to access stories? 

[Sharon Gaudino]

The Project Status Portal was deprecated in London. It was replaced with the Investment Portal.

Here is a byte from the London Release Notes:

"Investment Portal

Create a personalized investment board and track your key projects and demands in terms of their cost, schedule, and scope. Investment Portal replaces the Project Status Portal that was introduced in the Jakarta release. For upgraded customers, Investment Portal co-exists with Project Status Portal. If you are a new user (and London is your first release), only Investment Portal is available."

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/london-release-notes/page/release-notes/business-management/project-portfolio-management-rn.html

[Sharon Gaudino]

According to the ServiceNow docs:

To make the interface accessible to users with disabilities, ServiceNow includes features that support several specifications in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

ServiceNow® products are developed with the goal of adhering to the accessibility guidelines and principles which are set by the Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level A. The assistive technologies JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver are used to test ServiceNow products.

Source: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/madrid-release-notes/page/administer/accessibility-508-compliance/reference/r_Accessibility508Compliance.html

I'm looking to see if I can find more specific documentation.

[davidgustafsson]

What type of customisations/modifications to the PPM parts are usually asked for by customers?

[Greg Sahnd]

Our organization is using Jira today in our Agile transformation.  We're moving forward with using Portfolio Epics to help define a "project" especially as it relates to Portfolio tracking, SAFe framework relationship and the like.  Curious if anyone here has experience with Jira to see if you would leverage Agile Development app here over Jira and why?  Pros/cons?

[Kevin Boykin]

I do not believe there is an ability in ServiceNow agile planning to automatically have weekends and designated holidays to be skipped with building Program Increments or Sprints.  Currently they include both weekends and holidays.  Does our Product Team have any updates on this desired capability?

[Sharon Gaudino]

Users with the following roles can create and edit stories:

• scrum_master
• scrum_product_owner
• scrum_sprint_planner
• scrum_story_creator

[Sharon Gaudino]

That is a VERY broad questions. Usually during an implementation there are lots of requests for changes because every project manager and PMO has their own way of doing things and their own style. This is often the most challenging part of a PPM/PPS implementation. Because PPS is an evolving product, we try to encourage customers to try to stay as close to baseline as possible to avoid issues with upgrades in the future, but this is often a challenge.

We have gotten all different types of requests...from custom fields, to workflows on the various RIDAC items, etc....

My general advice is, wherever possible, try to stay as close as possible to baseline.  ServiceNow is EXTREMELY flexible and you CAN do pretty much anything you want to the platform, but this does not mean you SHOULD.