Project Management

Process Guide

Xanadu Release

Updated: October 2024

Asset number: 0003364

Table of Contents
Project Management.................................................................................................................. 4
Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 4
Overview of Project Management.........................................................................................4
Project Description............................................................................................................... 4
Project Management Goal.................................................................................................... 5
Project Management Objectives........................................................................................... 5
Relation With ITSM............................................................................................................... 5
Relationship With Other Processes.......................................................................................6
Principles and Basic Concepts.................................................................................................... 7
Project Processes................................................................................................................. 7
Project States....................................................................................................................... 8
Project Templates................................................................................................................. 8
Move Project......................................................................................................................... 9
Project Workspace................................................................................................................ 9
Planning Console (version not linked to Project Workspace)..............................................11
Schedule............................................................................................................................ 11
Project Workbench............................................................................................................. 12
Portfolio Planning Workbench............................................................................................. 13
Program Workbench........................................................................................................... 14
Project Roles............................................................................................................................ 15
RACI Matrix.............................................................................................................................. 18
Project Management Process................................................................................................... 20
Basics of Project Management............................................................................................ 20
Initiating a Project.............................................................................................................. 21
Planning the Project........................................................................................................... 22
Executing the Project......................................................................................................... 24
Delivering the Project......................................................................................................... 25
Closing the Project............................................................................................................. 27
Project Process Control............................................................................................................ 29
Dashboards........................................................................................................................ 29
PMO Dashboard................................................................................................................ 29

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 Investment Portal.............................................................................................................. 33
Reports and Homepages.................................................................................................... 35
Forms and Views................................................................................................................ 35
Flows.................................................................................................................................. 36
Mobile Access..................................................................................................................... 36
Project Communication and Collaboration..........................................................................36
Notifications....................................................................................................................... 37
Timecards........................................................................................................................... 37
Project Costing................................................................................................................... 37
Note: Plan the Schedule Job: Calculate Project Completion Estimates to populate the data38
Project Diagnostics............................................................................................................. 38
Project Portfolio Management.................................................................................................. 41
Portfolio Projects...................................................................................................................... 42
Appendix A: Document Conventions........................................................................................ 43
Appendix B: Project Management Features.............................................................................44
Appendix C: Project Task Dependency Types Currently Supported..........................................45
Appendix D: Investment Portal Timeline View..........................................................................46
Appendix E: Benchmarking...................................................................................................... 47
Appendix F: Additional Resources............................................................................................ 48
Appendix G: Sources................................................................................................................ 49

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Project Management
Introduction
The concepts described in this guide align with Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI)
standards and may reference capabilities dependent on other ServiceNow applications. These
references are noted in blue italicized font.
There are two main types of project portfolio management (PPM) implementations with
differing PPM needs:
 Execution-level PPM implementation: Project managers, resource managers, and
team members interested in a project and resource management product to manage the
tactical details of project execution and use reporting services to communicate progress
and expenditures back to business sponsors and management
 Project portfolio-level PPM implementation: Business sponsors, steering committees,
and project management offices (PMOs) interested in creating project-related decision
frameworks, selecting specific projects based on those frameworks, planning the delivery of
those projects or investments, tracking those investments at a high level, and reporting on
these activities

Overview of Project Management

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project
activities to meet the requirements of projects of all sizes, from small projects with a few tasks
to large portfolios of projects with complex tasks with various relationships and dependencies.
This document describes how ServiceNow supports project management through the
appropriate application and integration of the five project management process groups:
 Initiating
 Planning
 Executing
 Delivering
 Closing

Project Description
A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined scope of work and defined start and
endpoints to create a unique product, service, or result that may be tangible or intangible.
Because of the unique nature of projects, project results may have uncertainties or
differences. This contrasts with "operations" processes that are ongoing and repetitive and
follow an organization’s procedures.
Projects are undertaken at all levels in the organization and can involve any number of
individuals, departments, or business units.
Project management is responsible for managing the life cycle of all projects.

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respective companies with which they are associated.
Project Management Goal
The primary goal of project management is to apply the appropriate knowledge, tools, and
techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

Project Management Objectives

The objectives of project management are to:
 Identify project requirements
 Address project stakeholders' various needs, concerns, and expectations throughout the
project life cycle
 Facilitate and maintain collaborative project communications among project team
members and stakeholders
 Manage stakeholder expectations and satisfaction concerning requirements and
deliverables
 Stabilize competing demands such as project resources, budget, schedule, scope, issues,
and risks

Relation With ITSM

Consider leveraging a single record system for ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure
Library or IT business operations management) and PPM. This means that Incident, Problem
and Change, Service Catalog, the CMDB, and other applications interoperate seamlessly with
the Project application.

Outpu
Relation Description Input
t

 Underpins ITIL and project management activities

 Can host the project and other IT service management
records
 Contains details of the infrastructure vital to a project X
Configuration  Single consistent view of all ITIL and project activities
Management against a CI to keep all stakeholders in sync, mitigate
impacts, and reduce risks

 Single consistent view of all ITIL and project activities

against a CI to keep all stakeholders in sync, mitigate X
impacts, and reduce risks

Service Catalog  Single, simple, and consistent approach to capturing X

demand and project proposals
 Requester knows exactly what information to provide
 Request information automatically entered into the project
management application

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 Outpu
Relation Description Input
t

 More easily compare project proposals to one existing or in-

X
flight project while selecting

 A request for change (RFC) can be submitted so that

changes to a project can be formally introduced and X
approved
Change
 Can track project tasks that depend on changes
Management
 Change management is responsible for keeping the project
X
manager informed of all scheduled changes
 Transition issues and risks to the change control process

 Digital Portfolio Management read from Project

Digital Portfolio Management to show what projects or demands are
X
Management created against Business applications that are part of the
Digital Portfolio

 Defines measurable action taken on critical path tasks

 Provides historical data that objectively enables the PMO to X
review the project schedule
Service Level
Management  Defines the acceptable timeframe within which the project
management schedule works, including:
(SLM)
o Project tasks start times X
o Acceptable tasks pause conditions
o Target completion times

Relationship With Other Processes

The Project Management process may interact with other procedures, which are already
available in ServiceNow:

Relation Description Input Output

Innovation  Ideas can bypass the demand process and be

X
Management converted directly to a project

Demand Management  Approved Demands will become managed Projects X

 Resource Plans/Resource Assignments can be

Resource Management X X
generated during the Project Process

 Agile stories dates are rolled the up to project, and

Agile/Safe X X
the project manager manages delivery progress

Now Assist for SPM  Now Assist for SPM replaces this manual work X
product managers need to do with GenAI insights
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 Relation Description Input Output

to ensure customer feedback is summarize, tagged

and evaluated for sentiment.

Test Management  Manage the test schedule X X

Enterprise Architecture
 Manage applications & costs to ensure alignment
(FKA Application X X
and quickly adapt to change
Portfolio Management)

 Plan and manage enterprise releases, product

Release Management X
releases, and deployment process

 Funding for Projects, Portfolios, or Programs can be

Investment Funding X
managed using the Investment Funding application

 ESG read from PPM to show the projects that are

ESG X
planned or in execution to achieve the ESG goals

 Enables managing complex projects with multiple

tasks and provides end users visibility into these
projects.
Customer Service  Users can use this integration to create projects
Management and project tasks for their customer accounts.
Customers can also give end users visibility into
their projects and tasks from the Customer Service
Portal and enable them to take additional actions.

 Projects are planning items in the Portfolio

Roadmap Planning X
Planning/Strategic Planning Workspace

 Projects are work items in the Strategic Planning

Backlog; the new projects are added with the draft
Backlog Planning
state until they are prioritized to be moved to the
roadmap

Principles and Basic Concepts

Project Processes
Project management processes are required to guide all staff in the behaviors that make
project management effective. Processes statements depend on the culture of the
organization but should address the following:
 Use of a single management system for projects and IT operations
 Need to align project management with overall business objectives
 The Fact that a project may be initiated from an incident, defect, change, or enhancement,
but those tasks never become a project.
 Appropriate use of social and mobile tools for project management communication and
notification
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 Use of routine project process audits to ensure correct operation and deliverables
Project States
Throughout the project life cycle, tasks are tracked to support the project schedule and status
reporting. The state of a project or project task indicates where it is about the project
schedule and informs the project manager, team members, and stakeholders of the status of
the project. The typical uses of the base system state values are:
 Pending: default value when a record is created
 Open/Work in progress: work is in progress
 Closed complete: work is completed, and the task is closed
 Closed incomplete: work was done, is not yet completed, but the task is closed. This is
also used to express “Postponed/Freeze/On-Hold” projects
 Closed skipped: work was not performed, closed the task. This is also used to express
“Cancelled” projects

Project Templates
Although each project is unique, many projects follow a standard or similar process. A project
template is a best-practice approach to the project process that outlines the activities and
deliverables that must be produced to satisfy the project requirements. On the classic Project
form, use the Save as New Template feature in ServiceNow to create project templates.
When you create a template from a project, all the project attachments, tasks, and checklists
are copied to the template. You can add or remove attachments from the template using the
Project Template form. You can also apply multiple project templates to a single project. See
Create A New Template for A Project for more details.

Save as new template

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respective companies with which they are associated.
Copy Project feature is another option to enable project templating. This creates a new project
that includes all the tasks, relationships, and document links of an existing project and makes
it easy to create projects using a consistent process. You can even Copy a Partial Project via
the Planning Console, starting with a specific task. See Copying a Project for more details.

Copy project feature

Move Project
The ‘Move Project’ feature allows project managers to move or not move tasks based on
constraint type. ‘Move Project’ can be performed at any time regardless of the task state.

Project Workspace
The Project Workspace application provides an interactive UI to enable the project manager to
define, plan, track, and monitor projects from a single location. Cards can be configured and
give access to projects when clicking them.

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respective companies with which they are associated.
 Project workspace

When project managers access a project, they open its workspace directly and access the
project dashboard with the “Analytics” and project details, planning, resources, financials, and
status report tabs. Planning Console (Project Workspace)
When we click on each of the Project Workspace cards, you are taken to the planning console:

Please go to the Project Console UI Components documentation to understand each icon and
section.
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Schedule
Schedule pages can be displayed daily, weekly, or monthly. A schedule page is a record that
contains a collection of scripts that allow the custom generation of a calendar or timeline
display. To discuss how calendars are created with schedule pages, see Schedule Pages and
Invoke The Schedule Page And View A Calendar.

Program Workbench
The Program Workbench allows the PMO to define a new ‘Program.’ A ‘Program’ is a group of
related projects, demands, and program activities managed in a coordinated way to obtain
benefits not available from working them directly. Program managers drive these programs.
The program manager should be allowed to create tasks specific to the program. These tasks
are essential for completing the program but are outside the project scope. The program
manager can also define critical milestones, anticipated risks, and issues for the program. The
program manager also ensures that all participant projects of the program are on track in
terms of cost, resources, and schedule.

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 Program workbench

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Project Roles
Each role is assigned to individuals who perform specific tasks within the project process.
There can be more than one individual associated with a particular role. Additionally, a single
individual can assume more than one role within the project process. The structure and
maturity of the project process determine which roles exist in an organization.
The following table describes typical roles defined for project and portfolio management.

Role Description

Project Management Senior management team with the ability and authority to ensure the
Office (PMO) project process is rolled out and used by the entire organization.
Responsible for:
 Defining the overall mission of the project process.
 Establishing and communicating the project process mission, goals, and
objectives to all stakeholders
 Resolving any cross-functional issues
 Ensuring consistent execution of the project process across the
organization
 Monitoring the effectiveness of the project process across all active
projects and reporting to senior management
 Initiating any project process improvement initiatives
 Developing associated training criteria and coaching for all project
management processes

Project Manager Project managers are responsible for project planning, execution, and
closing.
Responsible for:
 Managing the day-to-day activities of the project
 Driving the efficiency and effectiveness of the project management
process
 Recruiting, building, and leading an effective project team
 Ensuring project progress by managing the interaction of project tasks
 Managing issues to reduce risks, maximize benefits, and restrict costs

Team Member Project team members are responsible for executing tasks and producing
deliverables as outlined in the project plan and directed by the project
manager, based on their level of effort.
Responsible for:
 Working on project tasks
 Communicating project task status, issues, and risks
 Producing project task deliverables
 Entering time worked

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 Role Description

Resource Manager Resource managers ensure the efficient and effective deployment of an
organization's resources. Resources include financial resources, inventory,
human skills, production resources, or information technology. The project
manager may sometimes assume this role.
Responsible for:
 Ensuring that available resources are used efficiently to complete the
project or project tasks within specified deadlines
 Tracking supply of resources
 Maintaining the resource demand forecast
 Assigning resources to project tasks
 Tracking resource utilization

Business The BRM represents the business units’ needs, communicates the project’s
Relationship deliverables to the project team, and shares information with the business
Manager (BRM) unit.
Responsible for:
 Gathering project requirements from the business
 Submitting project requests on behalf of the business
 Tracking project request status and communicating it to the business

Project Sponsor The project sponsor secures project funding and resources, champions the
project’s goals and objectives, monitors project activities, risks, and issues,
and is a crucial decision-maker for the project.
Responsible for:
 Providing funds for the project
 Reviewing project status
 Providing business guidance throughout the project life cycle

Stakeholders Stakeholders include groups, units, individuals, customers, and internal or

external organizations impacted by the project's outcomes.
Responsible for:
 Reviewing project status
 Providing business guidance and support throughout the project life cycle

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respective companies with which they are associated.
 Role Description

Program Manager Program managers are responsible for achieving programs regarding their
strategy, objectives, and budget to deliver the business outcomes.
Responsible for:
 Managing the program’s demands and projects to articulate the program
strategy and objectives
 Driving the efficiency and effectiveness of the program management
process
 Coordinate demands and projects which are cross-department or cross-
business units
 Ensuring program risks and issues won’t impact project progress

Portfolio Manager Portfolio managers make ongoing decisions about the organization’s
investment mix by selecting projects based on business objectives and
available resources.
Responsible for:
 Managing the project portfolio
 Maintaining an optimal mix of portfolio investments to meet changing
business objectives and evaluating scenarios to determine which is the
best for execution based on business strategy
 Balancing available resources, including labor, non-labor resources, and
finances

Project Administrator The Project Administrator is responsible for the technical aspects of the
project management application implementation.
Responsible for:
 Determining the Project Management application properties
 Customization of forms and views for project team members and
stakeholders
 Creation of workflow for project process automation
 Customization of record producers for project proposals
 Creation of reports, gauges, and dashboards for project team members
and stakeholders
 Configuration to enable the application to interoperate with other
ServiceNow applications

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RACI Matrix

Resource manager
Project manager

Program manager
Team member
Business user

Stakeholder/
ID Activities

Sponsor
PMO
PPM
Project Initiation
1.0

PPM 1.1 Create Project R A C/I C

PPM 1.2 Add Project to Portfolio R/A C

PPM 1.3 Assign Project Manager I R/A C/I

PPM
Project Planning
2.0

PPM 2.1 Plan the Project R/A C

PPM 2.2 Apply Templates R/A

PPM 2.3 Add Tasks R/A I

Build Task Relationships via the

PPM 2.4 R/A
Planning Console

PPM 2.5 Approve Resources C R/A

Assign Goals to Project and

PPM 2.6 C R/A I C
Strategy

PPM
Project Execution
3.0

PPM 3.1 Start Project R/A

PPM 3.2 Create Baseline R/A

PPM 3.3 Workflow I R/A

PPM 3.4 Task Status I A R I

PPM
Project Delivering
4.0

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 Resource manager
Project manager

Program manager
Team member
Business user

Stakeholder/
ID Activities

Sponsor
PMO
PPM 4.1 Manage Variables R/A

PPM 4.2 Documentation I R/A I

Risk Register / Issue

PPM 4.3 I R/A C/I I
Management

PPM 4.4 Project Communication I R/A I I

PPM 4.5 Project Status Report I R/A I I I I I

PPM
Project Closing
5.0

PPM 5.1 Post Implementation Review R/A

PPM 5.2 Close project I R/A C/I I

R: Responsible A: Accountable C: Consulted I: Informed

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Project Management Process
Basics of Project Management
A project is any planned, collaborative effort designed to achieve an objective. The Project
application not only helps you plan and track projects. It also integrates with other ServiceNow
applications.
Setting up a project involves deciding on an approach for creating and linking project tasks
and ensuring the necessary users and groups are created in ServiceNow so you can assign
them to project tasks. After these steps are accomplished, the project can be started. To
measure the project against initial estimates, it is essential to Create a Baseline, which is a
point-in-time snapshot of the project schedule and financial data.
With the project underway, the project manager continues to access project records and
changes required items, including costs, priority, schedule, strategy, and goals, planned
values that are not rollups. The project manager also keeps detailed project records for risks
and issues and refers to them after completion. It is also best practice to create additional
point-in-time baselines along the way, recording dates and cost plans if there is an approved
change of scope. The baseline will help to understand if any project phases or tasks are ahead
of or behind the original schedule and if project financials are under control.
It is best practice to manage status reports to monitor the projects, which gives visibility and
manageability to programs and portfolios the projects belong to and dashboards such as the
investment portal.
When the project is complete, its state is changed to Closed Complete on the Project form.
The project application calculates actual values, such as Actual duration, when the project is
in a closed state.
Post-project activities include analyzing project baselines and actual values and generating a
final project dashboard. If the project is successful, it could be used as a template for future
projects.
There are several paths available to manage a project. The best way usually depends on
business needs. The steps below are considered when determining how to get a project up
and running with minimum effort.
Note: ServiceNow PPM can be configured to support many alternative project methodologies,
including Agile and Waterfall.

Basics of project management

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respective companies with which they are associated.
Initiating a Project
Project initiation is evaluating and then approving or rejecting a proposed project. This can be
based on the strength of a project’s business case, cost, timeframe, and whether the project
aligns with current business objectives or the longer-term strategic plan.
To ensure success, the project should begin with a detailed project definition or request form
presented to and accepted by stakeholders. This can help ensure agreement and commitment
among project team members and stakeholders. The project initiation plan can include the
business case, overall goal, specific objectives, success criteria, scope, high-level schedule,
stakeholder accountabilities, communication plan, benefits and costs, governance and
resourcing, and risk mitigation plans. This helps to ensure a consistent understanding of the
project, set proper expectations, and identify the necessary resources to accomplish the
project goals.

ID Tasks Primary Role Input Output

Import Project (MS

or Other)
Create Project ACO PMs  Project Record
Create new project
Demand

Procedure: Most projects will be created via the Demand Process. When a Project is
PPM 1.1 created from a Demand, the Approved Start/End Dates are auto populated from the
Approved Demand’s Start/Due dates.
Approved Start/End Dates are used in the Strategic Planning Workspace to show the
project in the roadmap. If the project’s planned dates are different from the approved
dates, they will show in red.
 Projects that do not require a demand can be created manually. Only ACO PMs
can create Projects Manually.
Add Project to Existing projects
PMO  Portfolio projects
Portfolio (any state)

 Procedure:
 If a Portfolio was defined in the Demand Process, it would carry over to the Project.
PPM 1.2
 A portfolio is a group of related projects. If a project is related to other projects, create
a portfolio, and add the task. The Project application provides a valuable portfolio view
that makes it easy to report on the status of all projects in a portfolio.
 Link Project to Road-mapping. The Project is linked to a planning organization and
roadmap to track the roadmap execution in Strategic Planning Workspace.

Assign Project  Assigned Project

PMO Project Record
Manager Record
PPM 1.3
Procedure: After a Project is generated, the PMO will need to assign it to a specific Project
Manager

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respective companies with which they are associated.
Planning the Project
Project planning defines the scope of a project and identifies all prerequisites for project
execution. The project definition and scope should be reviewed and approved by the project
sponsor and other appropriate stakeholders. Project scope, budget, and schedule should be
confirmed. Project deliverables are refined. Risk assessment and mitigation plans are
developed. And project team members may be allocated to the project. Project sponsors then
provide final approval and authorization to proceed with project execution.

ID Tasks Primary Role Input Output

 Additional details added

 Assigned Project
Plan the Project Project Manager to Project form (State:
Record
Pending)

Procedure: Setting up a project involves deciding on an approach for creating and linking
project tasks and ensuring the necessary users and groups are created in ServiceNow so
you can assign them to project tasks.

PPM 2.1 Before creating a project, consider the following questions and issues:
 Top-down or bottom-up approach to tasking?
 Is the project part of a more extensive portfolio of projects?
 What types of dependencies will the tasks have with other tasks? Can standardized
templates be used to deliver the project?
 Can milestones and project baselines help manage the project?
 Have the necessary skills, groups, and resources been created in ServiceNow?

 Project Record with

Apply Template Project Manager  Project Record
Template(s) Applied

Procedure: Templates can be used to build out the WBS of a project automatically.
PPM 2.2 A Template may automatically be applied if selected from the Demand Record.
Templates will be filtered so that only the appropriate groups can apply the proper
Templates.
One or multiple templates can be applied to a Project.

 Project tasks added to

Add Tasks Project Manager  Project tasks
project (State: Pending)

Procedure: After creating a basic project, populate it with the phases, tasks, and subtasks
PPM 2.3 that comprise the project. Currently, decide whether to focus on top-down or bottom-up
planning.
It is easiest to build task relationships and dependencies while creating sets of tasks.
See Creating Project Tasks for more information.

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 ID Tasks Primary Role Input Output

Build Task
Relationships  Task  Gantt chart with project
Project Manager
via Planning dependencies dependencies
Console
PPM 2.4
Procedure: Use the Project Workspace with task forms and related lists to build
relationships. If necessary, add milestones based on the project's significant events and
create dependencies between milestones and tasks.

 Approval of resource
Approve assignment across the
Resource  User resources;
Resource project.
Manager Group resources
Assignments


Procedure: Resource Assignments should be initially generated in the Demand Process.

User resources are the individuals (users) assigned to project tasks in an organization. An
PPM 2.5 assignment group is a collection of users with similar skills who could be given the same
tasks. The Project application uses these resources in the Resource Management
Workspace, a graphical, interactive map that shows the relationships of project tasks to
user resources. Although user or group resources are not mandatory to manage projects in
the Project application, verify that any necessary resources are added to ServiceNow
through User Administration. Resources also tie into Cost Management and Skills
Management. See Task Resources for more information on creation and assignment
resources and groups.

 Strategy and
goals linked to
Assign Goals Project
the strategy  Linked project to achieve
to Project and Manager/Busines
identified by the 1oneor more goals
Strategy s User
Business
Managers

PM 2.6  Procedure: Strategy and goals should be initially generated in the Demand Process
 The organization defines strategy and goals, and in the project, it is identified which
goals this project will help to achieve.
 The information will be linked to Strategy and goal framework to review the
consecution of the strategy and goals and the cost used in the projects.
 Define the formula or the % of completion of the goals, this can be manual or
automatic from benefit plans, etc.

Executing the Project

After the project initiation steps are complete, the project can be started and measured
against initial estimates. Project automation helps ensure ease of use, adoption, and
adherence to the project process. A well-defined project communication process will help
provide necessary information to the PMO, team members, project sponsor, and stakeholders
throughout the project process.
21
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respective companies with which they are associated.
 ID Tasks Primary Role Input Output

Project record (Project State) Work in

Start Project Project Manager
Child project tasks progress project

PPM Procedure: After creating and linking project tasks and ensuring the necessary users and
3.1 groups are assigned, you can start the project.
Change the project state to Work in Progress and click Save. This changes the Actual
start date of the project to the current date.
See Starting a Project for more information.

Create Updates to project and Baseline record

Project Manager
Baseline project tasks captured

PPM Procedure: Initial baseline is automatically captured if the project is created from a Demand
3.2 record. Subsequent project baselines can be manually captured to see if any project phase,
tasks, or costs are slipping when you create the baseline.
Use the Baseline Variance attribute to view the size of the variance between the end dates
current plan and the baseline.

Workflows for project

Workflow Project Manager Project process
automation

PPM Procedure: Consider opportunities for project process automation:

3.3  Approvals (request changes, resource request, timecard)
 Review process at milestones and gates
 Integrated change request process

Project task description

Updated project actuals
Project Team State change
(time and cost)
Task Status Member
Percent complete
Supporting descriptions
PPM Project Manager
Actual effort or time and details
3.4 worked

Procedure: Project team members update project task status and actual effort so that
accurate project status details are available to the project manager and stakeholders
promptly

22
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Delivering the Project
The project manager must track budget, scope, and schedule (the “Triple Constraint”) and
their effect on quality. Proper risk management processes should be defined to mitigate or
resolve chance. When a risk arises, that threatens the project’s scope, budget, schedule, or
quality, the project manager must determine the steps to ensure the project’s integrity. A list
of issues should also be maintained along with an issue management plan that identifies steps
for handling issues, including, if necessary, transitioning the case to the change control
process.

ID Tasks Primary Role Input Output

Manage  Actual time, effort;  Aggregate project

Project Manager
Variables cost effort and costs

PPM 4.1 Procedure: Track cost, effort, and scope.

This cost is mapped to the existing cost plan when tracking actual cost. If it does not exist,
the system will auto-generate a cost plan, so the total actual cost is aligned with the cost
plans.

Project Manager  Stored project

 Project documents documents
Documentation Project and deliverables
Administrator  Approval process

Procedure: Consider required project documents and deliverables. Identify document

PPM 4.2 templates; revision, review, approval process; and document sharing and storage.
 Attachments
 Knowledge base
 Managed documents
 Gates

 Risk management
Risk plan  Risk/issues records
Register/Issue Project Manager
 Risks/issues related (related lists)
Management
PPM 4.3 lists

Procedure: Determine which risks may affect the project and document the characteristics
to enable team members to anticipate risks. Keep detailed project records for risks and
issues and refer to them for analysis after completing a project.

23
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respective companies with which they are associated.
 ID Tasks Primary Role Input Output

 Project
communication
process
 Dashboards
Project  Stakeholder KPIs and
Project Manager
Communication Metrics  Reports
 Notifications
 Live feed group:
PPM 4.4 Project Team

Procedure: Determine the following project communication requirements:

 Stakeholder or project sponsor reports
 Dashboards for PMO, resource managers, project team, and stakeholders
 Types of notifications required
 Social collaboration (Live feed groups and notifications)
See Project Reporting for more information on the available reporting options.

Meetings and
Project, cost, progress, Committees
Project Status
Project Manager risk, issue, schedule,
Report Stakeholders
scope statuses
Dashboards

Procedure: Status Reports sustain the project communication; operational status reporting
is an essential aspect of communication with all project stakeholders. The Project Status
PPM 4.5 Report allows project managers to report the status of their project. Status reports fill
portfolio and program workbenches, investment portal, and dashboard pages. These
reports also can be printed or sent to stakeholders as attachments.
 Evaluate the project overall, schedule, resource, cost, and scope health
 Comment each health status for record and communication
 To reach RIDAC Item, specify if they should show in the Project Status Report by
checking the Show on Project Status Report box

24
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respective companies with which they are associated.
 Project status report

Project status report (cont.)

Closing the Project

Project closing typically includes a post-implementation review to gather feedback from the
project manager, project team members, project sponsor, and other stakeholders. Their
feedback is reviewed to derive any lessons learned and best practices stored in a central
repository for reference and guidance for future projects.

25
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respective companies with which they are associated.
The project status is set as Closed complete when successfully implemented and approved or
accepted by the project sponsors. The project manager, appropriate extended team members,
and stakeholders should determine if and how well the project met the project sponsor’s
requirements, including what the team did well and what lessons can be learned from any
mistakes. Additionally, the project manager should evaluate ways to improve processes to
develop best practices; and then communicate findings in a post-implementation report.

ID Tasks Primary role Input Output

Post Project Manager

Implementation Project feedback Post-implementation report
Review

Procedure: Gather feedback from the project manager, project team members, project
PPM 5.1 sponsors, and other stakeholders for post-implementation reporting
 Solicit Feedback
 Conduct post-implementation review
 Prepare post-implementation report
 Create a Continual Improvement Initiative, if implementing CIM

Project Manager Appropriate

(Project State) Closed
Close Project documents and
complete
signoffs
PPM 5.2
Procedure: Complete all administrative tasks required to bring the project to an official
close.

26
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registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.
Project Process Control
Dashboards
PMO Dashboard
Provides a comprehensive view of information related to a Portfolio, Program, Organization, or
entity owner. It provides the viewer with a logical flow from left to right, with a visual queue of
actions they might need to take.
It ensures data quality is not impacting decisions; it shows real-time trending information,
actuals in defined date ranges, and schedules using the Calendar. It highlights information
where the action is needed.

Section KPI/Metric Purpose

Active Projects count.

Count projects per investment type,
Provides a high-level overview of
Summary investment class, and priority.
critical in-flight project information.
Rolled up financial amounts for costs and
benefits; planned, actuals, and forecasts

Various ages of ideas, demands, and Track the pipeline process

projects. performance and gain insights into
Pipeline
Conversion ratios from ideas to demands potential ideation and demand
to project. bottlenecks.

Provides insights into project health

Count projects in red status, overdue, over
Project Health trends to identify areas for
budget, high risks, negative ROI, etc.
intervention.

Provides insights into the current

Count demands and projects for 12 types
Data Quality data quality, guiding training and
of missing data.
communications efforts.

Allows a simple comparison between

Figures to provide insight into planned,
planned and actual data for cost,
Actuals budgeted, actual, and benefit costs; into
resource, and benefits to identify
allocated and solid hours.
areas of concern quickly.

View project and project task record

Show tasks and milestones in a calendar
Calendar on a calendar to visualize key
view.
planned end dates for the selection.

27
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respective companies with which they are associated.
 PMO dashboard – summary

PMO dashboard – pipeline

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respective companies with which they are associated.
 PMO dashboard – project health

PMO dashboard – data quality

29
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respective companies with which they are associated.
 PMO dashboard - actuals

PMO dashboard – calendar

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respective companies with which they are associated.
Investment Portal
Track progress of inflight work for different personas, C-level executive, program manager,
project manager, business application, owner, etc. It allows flexible and configurable views to
briefly view health status, timeline, and costs.

Investment portal – overview

Investment portal - timeline

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respective companies with which they are associated.
 Investment portal – financials

Strategic spend tracking dashboard

Reports and Homepages

Several default reports in ServiceNow can generate charts, be published to a URL, or be run
and distributed at scheduled intervals. Users can also create custom reports. See Creating
Reports for more information.

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respective companies with which they are associated.
In addition to reports, each user can create a personal dashboard and add gauges containing
up-to-the-minute information about the status of ServiceNow tables. See Create and Use
Dashboards in the ServiceNow documentation for details.

Forms and Views

Project administrators can Customize the Layout for Any Form View and list to display the
desired information for a particular type of user. Accordingly, determine what information
users need to see and create views for forms and lists.

Configure form

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 Configure list

Flows
The workflow should be used to automate, streamline, and help enforce the project
methodology when possible. This includes any processes that are unique to the organization.
Examples are the project request process and project milestones or gates that may require
review, approval, and other processes that could be automated.
See Flow Designer for more information.

Mobile Access
Project managers and project team members can use mobile access to the project to more
regularly update project tasks to help keep project status current. Mobile access provides a
mechanism for stakeholders to project status easily and readily. Determine what type of
mobile access is needed to view specific project data, add an issue to a project, update
project task status, or view up-to-the-minute project status. Typical access includes:
 Allowing end-users to report their time into the PPM system from mobile devices
 Allowing project managers to approve timecards and project ideas or requests from mobile
devices
 Allowing business or project managers to access and view reports and dashboard
information from mobile devices
See Now Mobile App for more information.

Project Communication and Collaboration

Review how project collaboration is accomplished and whether everyone utilizes the same
tools for project collaboration or several tools. If several tools are used, consider how this
information can be collected to ensure everyone is informed who needs to be. One option is to
use the ServiceNow social networking and collaboration capabilities to augment or replace
34
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respective companies with which they are associated.
existing tools. ServiceNow offers issue tracking, email integration, and live feed discussion
threads to help the project team collaborate effectively. When applied in the PPM system,
these features can significantly increase end-user adoption, which is key to the success of the
PPM implementation.
See Social IT for more information.

Notifications
Appropriate notifications should be created to help keep the project on track and to
automatically alert team members, reviewers, and approvers about critical activities that
require their input. Examples include email notifications when a project request, project task,
or deliverable needs review and approval; live feed group notifications based on conditions;
dashboard gauges indicating tasks or other records that require attention; and scheduled
reports to the project sponsor or other stakeholders.

Timecards
Project team members can easily update time worked on individual tasks or update many
tasks simultaneously via the native in-line editing feature. Optionally, the Timecard
application can be used to submit timecards periodically.
Timecards are filled using the Time Sheet Portal, available to all PPM users.
Timecards automatically create expense lines using labor rate cards. Timecards are rolled up
to the project actual. They can be linked to resource plans and costs to roll up solid hours and
cost information.
The approval process applies to timecards to validate or reject them after submission.
See Time Cards, Rate Models, and Time Sheet Policies for more information.

Project Costing
Determine the appropriate project costing features to enable estimating and tracking the
costs associated with projects, such as:
 Create fiscal calendars with defined fiscal periods that will be used in timecards or cost
plans.
 Estimating resource costs during project planning using Rate Models
 Tracking the actual cost of each User Resource for a project
 Tracking actual project task costs from Timecards and other project expenses
 Allocating project costs to the business, using Expense Lines and Expense Allocations
 Representing project costs to the project's affected CIs
 Rolling up actual task expenses to parent tasks and the project record
 Review project forecasting metrics

35
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Note: Plan the Schedule Job: Calculate Project Completion Estimates to populate the data

Project Diagnostics
Project Diagnostics enables you to detect corrupt data in a project, such as a task validity,
dependencies, and relationships using diagnostic scans that execute diagnostic scripts.
 Data might become corrupt or invalid for various reasons, such as:
 Incorrect field mapping during project import
 Incorrect scheduling of tasks
 Incorrect dependency and relationship definitions

As part of the governance process, it is recommended to include a run of project diagnostic to

ensure that data is validated.

36
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registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.
Recommended steps:
1. Decide what validations are needed from the available list.
Diagnostic Scan
Description
Name

Lists the tasks that have an invalid top task. A task is considered to have an
Tasks with invalid top
invalid top task if the value for the top task is set to Null or is mapped to a
task
different task in the hierarchy.

Lists the tasks that have an invalid top portfolio. A task is considered to have
Tasks with invalid top
an invalid top portfolio if it belongs to a different portfolio or is not associated
portfolio
with any portfolio.

Lists the tasks that have an invalid top program. A task is considered to have
Tasks with invalid top
an invalid top program if it belongs to a different program in the same
program
portfolio or is not associated with any program.

Lists the invalid relations in a project.

Invalid relations A relation is invalid if the predecessor or successor is not a part of the
project (unless it is an external relation), or if the predecessor or successor
record does not exist in the system.

Validate parent tasks Lists the tasks that have empty or invalid parents.

Checks for any cyclic relations, which are not permitted in a project. For
Check for tasks with example, suppose you have a project in which Task A is related to Task B. A
cyclic dependencies. reverse relation from Task B to Task A would be considered a cyclic
dependency.

Recalculates task dates in a project.

Recalculate project
Warning: Performing this action might change the dates in a project.

Check Lists tasks that have duplicate or redundant relations in the selected
duplicate/redundant
relationships. projects.

Cost plans with no Checks and lists cost plans with no start and end fiscal period within
start and end fiscal
period the selected projects.

Lists all tasks with invalid constraint types. For example, a task with
Validate project task Start no later than set as a parent or the Constraint date field is
constraints in project empty for a task with Start no earlier than and start no later than
constraint.

Validate tasks with

Lists all tasks with invalid WIP or Closed state based on actual dates.
invalid state

Identify projects with a Checks and lists the projects that have negative fiscal year project
negative planned budgets.
costs for any year
where the budget was
not allocated to the

37
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respective companies with which they are associated.
 Diagnostic Scan
Description
Name

corresponding fiscal
periods.

Checks and lists the projects for which project funding does not
Identify discrepancies
match with the sum of task type breakdown cost or fiscal year
in the project budget
project budget.

Identify cost plan

breakdowns with Checks and lists the cost plan breakdowns with invalid fiscal periods.
invalid fiscal periods

Identify duplicate task

type breakdowns for
Checks and lists the duplicate task type breakdowns.
an expense type and a
fiscal period

Associate orphan Lists the expense lines that are not associated to any cost plan.
expense lines to the When you run the fix script, these orphan expense lines are
system generated cost associated to a System-Generated Cost Plan and then to the
plan respective breakdowns of the system-generated cost plan.

2. Include any validation related to a specific process or data not available in the OOTB list. To
do this task, please go to Create and Add Diagnostic.
3. Run project diagnostic and include the run and issue resolution as part of the project
governance.

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registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.
Project Portfolio Management
Project portfolio management's objective is to maintain the optimal mix of projects or
investments to support the organization’s overall welfare and success. Project portfolio
management groups related projects and configured progress data for presentation.
Determine what types of portfolios are to be maintained.
Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) addresses all enterprise maturities:
1. List portfolios and projects, visibility, and reporting.
 No duplicate project, no “mystery” project, no side project, all activity is inventoried.
 The Investment Portal is mainly used to provide this visibility.
2. Build budgets for a defined period, manage the budget.
 Manage portfolios, prepare, build, and approve budgets for a specified period
 Compose, evaluate, and select scenarios based on which projects/demands are
executed and how they impact the portfolio budget
 Portfolio Workbench is used
3. Build budget, the track forecast.
 Manage portfolios, prepare, build and approve yearly budgets
 Track and promote forecasted budgets during the year
 Portfolio Workbench is used
Portfolios and programs can both manage demands and projects in a flexible structure. To
enforce demands and projects of a program being part of the same portfolio is an option.
Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) doesn’t manage portfolio hierarchies or program
hierarchies.
Identify the types of gauges required for homepages to deliver at-a-glance reports for
management. In ServiceNow, status information about projects presented in a portfolio view is
abstracted from the raw data and is not dynamic. A read-only portfolio Gantt chart is also
used to view and compare projects in a portfolio.

39
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Portfolio Projects
Please use the PPM Portfolio Scenario Planning – Process Guide asset for this information.

40
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix A: Document Conventions
Symbol Description

Process starts or endpoint represents the starting and ending

point of the process.

Process activity or task presents an activity or task that needs

to be accomplished to produce a specific outcome.

A predefined external process or organization indicates a

contribution from an external process or organization.

Decision: indicates that a question needs to be answered to

identify the following activity or task in the process. The answers
are displayed on the different connectors attached to the decision
box. Every solution is linked to an associated activity or task.

System action or function indicates that an action is being

performed as an output of the previous activity and input to the
next.

The off-page reference indicates a reference to another

diagram within the same process. The number of the referenced
diagram is shown in shape.

The on-page reference indicates a link to another activity within

the same diagram.

Association: indicates an association or a relation between the

connected processes, tasks, or activities. A dotted or dashed line
may represent it.

Sequence flow: shows the order in which the activities are

performed and represented by a solid line and arrowhead.

41
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix B: Project Management Features
 Project logic: All basic project management concepts (planned start and end dates,
durations, dependencies, time calculations, and resources). All planned tasks (project,
project task, and any planned-type tasks you want to create) automatically inherit this
functionality. As a result, all the planned tasks can work together within a project and share
identical methods for calculating their dates and durations
 Parent/child relationships: The parent/child structure for building the project hierarchy
(phases and tasks) utilizes the Parent field on the Task table.
 Dependencies: Project management has many-to-many dependency capabilities, which
allow for a task to be both predecessor and successor to multiple other tasks
 Modular templates: The template functionality in the base system allows any existing
project in the system to be used as a template. Copy a smaller sub-project from a more
extensive project structure and make it an individual project. This encourages a more
modular approach to build projects since a project usually consists of many smaller
templates: one for the generic project structure, one to create the project approval tasks,
and one to create the project closure tasks
 Project management platform integration: The Create Project option enables users to
create a project directly from an incident, problem, or change record. The new project is
pre-populated with data from the source task
 Baselines: A project manager can create a project baseline at any time. This baseline is a
real-time data copy of the current project's schedule and financial data that can be used for
variance reporting
 Milestones: Milestones (or gates) are fully supported and are defined as planned tasks
with zero duration. Milestones are treated like any other planned task, except that they are,
by default, represented by a diamond (fully customizable) on the Gantt chart
 Risks and Issues: Project risks and issues can be tracked against a project. Since issues
are Task table extensions, they can be managed like any other task: assigned, measured
with SLAs, or included in notifications
 Resource allocation: The User Resources-related list associates users with project tasks
and assigns them a percentage allocation. This percentage allocation is checked against
the project schedule and used to calculate the number of hours the percentage allocation
represents. These hours are then used to determine the resource's availability
 Assignment restrictions: Assignment tasks within a project can be restricted to users
listed in the project's User Resources list
 RIDAC: Management of risks, issues, decisions, actions, and requests for changes within
projects
 Project Forecasting: Forecast the Project costs like Estimate to Completion and Estimate
At Completion by Fiscal Period

42
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix C: Project Task Dependency Types
Currently Supported
ServiceNow project portfolio management supports ASAP, Start on Specific Date, Start No
Earlier Than, and Start No Later than time constraints. ServiceNow sets the time constraint for
tasks imported from Microsoft Project to Start on Specific Date if their Microsoft Project time
constraint differs from ASAP.

Dependency Currently
Description
Type Supported

Task 1 is the predecessor of Task 2 with a Finish to Start

Finish to Start Yes
dependency type. Task 2 cannot start until Task 1 finishes.

Task 1 is the predecessor of Task 2 with a Finish-to-Finish

Finish to Finish Yes
dependency type. Task 2 cannot finish until Task 1 finishes.

Task 1 is the predecessor of Task 2 with a Start-to-Start

Start to Start Yes
dependency type. Task 2 cannot start until Task 1 starts.

Task 1 is the predecessor of Task 2 with a Start to Finish

Start to Finish Yes
dependency type. Task 2 cannot finish until Task 1 starts.

43
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respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix D: Investment Portal Timeline View
The Investment Portal views are used to assess the progress of the projects within a portfolio.
The Timeline View shows a summary of portfolio projects and milestones. The start and finish
dates for each project are displayed for other projects.
Also, the Investment Portal feature allows project, program, and portfolio managers to find
their projects based on any filter criteria such as manager, location, priority, risk, program,
portfolio, etc., and then track the schedule of these projects together to keep a close watch on
these projects.
For example, as a portfolio manager for IT projects for the marketing department, I want to
closely track the schedule of all the high-risk projects going live in the next three weeks.

Investment portal timeline view

44
© 2024 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix E: Benchmarking

Drive continuous improvement and gain additional insights by leveraging benchmarks and
recommendations:

After the November release a new benchmarking KPI has been included for SPM allowing the
following features:

1. Effectively benchmark KPIs from a single dashboard by comparing against peers based
on industry, region, and size.
2. Opt-in with a single click and select KPIs to be benchmarked against, providing only
anonymized and aggregated data.
3. Receive improvement recommendations based on historical company performance or
in comparison to peers

45
© 2024 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix F: Additional Resources
 Product Documentation
 ServiceNow Community: [Link]
 ServiceNow Demo
 Project Management Institute (PMI): [Link]

46
© 2024 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.
Appendix G: Sources
1. Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Based Project and Portfolio Management Services 27 June 2012
ID: G00234747
2. Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Based Project and Portfolio Management Services 27 June 2012
ID: G0023474
3. Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) Project
Management Institute
4. [Link]
5. [Link]

47
© 2024 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, Now Platform, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the
respective companies with which they are associated.