Exploring Goal Framework and Goal Framework for SPM

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Exploring Goal Framework and Goal Framework for SPM

    The Goal Framework application in ServiceNow enables organizations to create and manage goals, set measurable targets, and evaluate progress to achieve strategic plans and drive business outcomes. The Goal Framework for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) extends this by automating the tracking of actual target values through integration with various data sources like benefit plans, cost plans, assessments, surveys, and Performance Analytics (PA) indicators.

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    Key Components

    • Strategic Priorities: Define focus areas or long-term strategies that guide organizational plans toward achieving goals over specified timeframes.
    • Goals: Qualitative objectives aligned with strategic plans, which can have sub-goals and be associated with work or planning items across ServiceNow products to track accountability.
    • Targets: Measurable benchmarks (quantitative or qualitative) set to track progress toward goals, with the ability to break down targets into smaller intervals (e.g., quarterly).
    • Target Sources (SPM feature): Configurations that automate updating actual values for targets by fetching data from various ServiceNow tables, including PA Indicators, assessments/surveys, custom scripts, and predefined scripts for benefit plans.
    • Context Variables: Additional configurations required for certain target source types (Assessment/Survey, PA Indicator) to fetch and update actual target values accurately.

    Practical Benefits and Workflow

    • Create and orient strategic plans using strategic priorities.
    • Define ambitious goals that motivate teams and support organizational objectives.
    • Set measurable targets for goals, including breakdowns for detailed tracking.
    • Associate various work items—such as demands, projects, programs, epics, and initiatives—from different ServiceNow applications to goals, enhancing visibility and accountability.
    • With Goal Framework for SPM, automate the actual value updates for targets, reducing manual effort and increasing accuracy.
    • Monitor and evaluate goal progress effectively within the ServiceNow AI Control Tower environment.

    Feature Comparison: Goal Framework vs. Goal Framework for SPM

    The Goal Framework provides essential capabilities for strategic planning, goal creation, target setting, and associating work with goals. The Goal Framework for SPM includes all these features and adds automation of actual target values by integrating with multiple data sources, enhancing real-time tracking and reporting.

    Customer Takeaway

    ServiceNow customers can leverage the Goal Framework to structure and track strategic objectives effectively. For organizations requiring automated progress tracking linked to financial or operational data, the Goal Framework for SPM offers enhanced automation capabilities. This integration streamlines goal management, improves accuracy of progress data, and supports informed decision-making to achieve strategic outcomes.

    The Goal Framework application helps you create goals, set targets for them, and evaluate the progress of the goals and targets to accomplish your organizational plans and drive business outcomes.

    The Goal Framework for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) application enables you to automate the actual value of your targets by collecting the actuals from different target sources such as benefit plans, cost plans, assessments/surveys, and PA Indicators.

    Goal Framework key components:
    • Strategic priorities: Actions of a strategic plan that help to orient your organizational strategic plan toward your goal.
    • Goals: Objectives that you want to reach based on your strategic plans.
    • Targets: Targets for goals to track and measure the progress of the goals.
    Goal Framework for SPM key component:
    Target source is the key component of Goal Framework for SPM. Target source is a configuration for a target that is used to auto-update the actual value of the target, so that the progress of the target and its goal is auto-updated.

    Strategic priorities

    Strategic priorities are the objectives of your organizational plans. Strategic priorities help you to achieve your goals over a designated time period. The strategic priorities are also known as focus areas or long-term strategies. Defining strategic priorities helps to orient your organizational strategic plans toward your goals.

    Goals

    Goals refer to objectives that an organization sets for itself to accomplish their organizational plans. Goals are typically qualitative in nature. Goals should be ambitious and are expected to motivate and challenge your teams. Some examples of goals are as follows:
    • Using renewable energy by the end of the year 2022.
    • Increase diversity in the workplace by 50 percent.
    A goal can also have sub-goals. You can also associate work and planning items to a goal so that you can track who is responsible for fulfilling the goal.
    If you use Goal Framework with other products, you can also do the following:
    • If you're a ServiceNow® Project Portfolio Management user, you can associate demands, projects, and programs with a goal to capture the work being done to meet your goal.
    • If you're a ServiceNow® Agile Development 2.0 user, you can associate scrum epics with a goal to capture the work being done to meet your goal.
    • If you're a ServiceNow® Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) user, you can associate SAFe epics and SAFe features with a goal to capture the work being done to meet your goal.
    • If you're a Strategic Planning user, you can associate planning items - Demand, Project, and Epic, and strategic items - Program and Initiative - with a goal to capture the work being done to meet your goal.

    Targets

    Targets help you to measure your goal. For example, to meet the goal of increasing diversity in the workplace by 50 percent, the target can be to hire a 30 percent-diverse workforce by the first quarter of 2022.

    Targets can be set as a quantitative or qualitative by defining the unit of measure for the target. Quantitative targets are numbers-based, countable, and measurable. Qualitative targets are interpretation-based, descriptive, typically yes or no type.

    You can also breakdown a target into smaller periods (example, Quarterly) which helps you set a target for each quarter and focus on the specific breakdown targets. The target breakdowns are automatically created based on the breakdown interval set for the target. For details on how the target breakdowns feature works, see Target breakdowns.

    Qualitative targets
    Qualitative targets are typically non-measurable but can be tracked whether the target has been achieved. The available unit of measure for qualitative targets is Yes/No. You can also define a custom unit of measure (for the available choice set) for qualitative targets as per your need and set qualitative targets for your goals.

    For example, to achieve a target of conducting hackathon in Q2-2023, the target can be set as conduct hackathon in Q2-2023 with the unit of measure Yes/No. Base and target value of the target can be No and Yes respectively. After the target is successful with the hackathon event, the target value can be updated to Yes.

    Target sources

    Target source is a configuration for a target that is used to auto-update the actual value of the target, so that the progress of the target and its goal is auto-updated. Any table or a combination of tables (for example, benefit plans, cost plans, surveys, incidents, and PA indicators) present on the ServiceNow AI Platform® can be configured as a target source.

    The following target source types are supported for automating the actual value of a target.
    • PA Indicator: Updates the Actual value field on the target form by fetching the required data from the PA Indicator.
    • Assessment/Survey: Updates the Actual value field on the target form by fetching the required data from the Assessment metric type and Assessment metric category records.
    • Custom script: The Custom script fetches the required data from any ServiceNow AI Platform table that is configured. With the Custom script option, any table or a combination of tables present on the ServiceNow AI Platform can be configured as a target source.

      Predefined target automation script for benefit plans: The predefined, default script is a target source that updates the Actual value field on the target form by fetching the value from the Actual benefit field or Non-monetary actual benefit field from the monetary or non-monetary benefit plans of relevant work items.

    Context variable

    The context variable is an additional configuration for the target source. The context variable provides information that can be used on the target form to fetch the required data and update the Actual value field on the Target form. The context variable is required for target source types Assessment/Survey and PA Indicator. If the Goal Framework for SPM scope is selected while creating a target source, the context variable is automatically created for the target source (of type Assessment/Survey and PA Indicator). For more information on context variables, see Context variable in target source.

    Benefits and workflow

    Use the Goal Framework or Goal Framework for SPM application to do the following activities:

    For an example of the structure of a strategy from the strategic plan level down to targets, see Enterprise strategy example.

    Comparing Goal Framework with Goal Framework for SPM

    • Goal Framework: Create goals, set targets for them, and evaluate the progress of the goals and targets to accomplish the organizational plans and drive business outcomes.
    • Goal Framework for SPM: Automate the actual value of your targets by collecting the actuals from different target sources such as benefit plans, cost plans, assessments/surveys, and PA Indicators.
    Table 1. Comparison of Goal Framework and Goal Framework for SPM features
    Feature Goal Framework Goal Framework for SPM
    Create strategic plans No Yes
    Create strategic priorities Yes Yes
    Create goals Yes Yes
    Set targets Yes Yes
    Set target breakdowns No Yes
    Associate work with goals Yes Yes
    Automate actual value of targets No Yes
    Monitor goals and strategies in ServiceNow AI Control Tower Yes Yes
    Note:
    The Goal Framework for SPM application is an extension to the Goal Framework application. When you install the Goal Framework for SPM application, you get all the features of Goal Framework as well as the target automation feature.