Portfolio Management

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Portfolio Management

    The ServiceNow® Portfolio Management application enables users to create portfolios, which consist of related programs, projects, and demands. This functionality supports financial planning and monitoring of portfolio status and progress. To manage a portfolio, users must have the itportfoliomanager role.

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    Key Features

    • Create Portfolios: Users can assemble portfolios by adding related programs, projects, and demands.
    • Annual Portfolio Planning: The application allows for the selection of demands and projects based on budget targets and resource availability, facilitating budget creation and promotion.
    • Portfolio Workbench: A central location to monitor progress and perform planning activities, including budget forecasting and tracking financials.
    • Tracking Progress: Portfolio managers can track actual spending, hours, risks, and issues against the planned budget.
    • Dashboard: The Portfolio Manager dashboard offers graphical reports on portfolio performance and financials.
    • Scenario Planning for PPM: Users can compare various portfolio scenarios to optimize demands and project funding based on financial value.
    • Legacy Portfolio Workbench: Although deprecated, it remains available for upgrades from previous releases and allows for viewing associated demands and projects.

    Key Outcomes

    By utilizing the Portfolio Management application, ServiceNow customers can effectively manage their portfolios, perform detailed financial planning, track progress, and make informed decisions based on scenario analysis. This leads to optimized resource allocation and enhanced project execution strategies for the organization.

    With the ServiceNow® Portfolio Management application, you can create portfolios which are collections of related programs, projects, and demands. You can then perform financial planning and monitor the status and progress of these portfolios.

    Watch this four-minute video to learn about the portfolio structure, creating a portfolio and program, setting up a stakeholder registry, and the portfolio workbench.

    You must have the it_portfolio_manager role to manage a portfolio. The Portfolio Management application provides these capabilities to the portfolio manager:
    • Create a portfolio by adding related programs, projects, and demands.
    • Perform annual portfolio planning by selecting demands, projects, and programs.
    • Track the progress and status of all the programs, projects, and demands that are part of the portfolio. You can track the costs, resources, schedules, risks, and issues.
    The following diagram provides an overview of Portfolio Management.
    Figure 1. Overview of Portfolio Management
    Overview of portfolio management

    Features

    Portfolio Management also provides the following features:
    Portfolio workbench
    The portfolio workbench provides a central location to view and monitor the progress of the program, the projects, and demands that are part of the portfolio. You can also perform annual portfolio planning, create budget and forecast plans for the portfolio.
    Annual planning for the portfolio
    The annual planning wizard is available in the portfolio workbench. The annual planning process comprises these steps:
    1. Determine the overall cost requirements for the portfolio and set the target.
    2. Select the demands and projects for a fiscal year based on the budget target and resource availability.
    3. Create and promote a budget plan.
    4. If required, re-promote the budget plan by performing a what-if analysis by adding or removing projects and demands before the budget is finalized.
    Budget forecasting of the portfolio
    Using the portfolio workbench, the portfolio managers can re-estimate (forecast) the portfolio budget for future periods based on the actual cost and changed project requirements.
    Tracking of the portfolio
    Once the financial planning is complete, portfolio workbench allows you to track the progress of a portfolio. This tracking includes the actual amount being spent against the budget, actual hours spent, risks, and issues.
    Portfolio Manager dashboard
    The Portfolio Manager dashboard provides a central location to generate different graphical reports of the portfolio and portfolio financials.

    Scenario-based Portfolio Planning

    Install the Scenario Planning for PPM application from ServiceNow Store to help the portfolio managers do a scenario-based portfolio planning with different combinations of demands and projects. You can Compare multiple scenarios in a portfolio and fund only those demands and projects that add financial value to the organization.