As with any industry-leading technology, ServiceNow’s environment is ever-changing in ways both innovative and practical. The latest example of this, as part of the recent San Diego release, is a module name change.
ServiceNow IT Business Management (ITBM) is now called ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM).
Here’s a quick look at why this name change happened, what it means, and what benefits/changes ServiceNow users can expect as a result.
Moving from silos to cross-team, collaborative work
In a way, this name change to Strategic Portfolio Management from ITBM is emblematic of ServiceNow’s embrace of collaborative, cross-functional work within organizations.
TL;DR: Down with silos.
Many organizations (intentionally or not) still tend to work in silos, often by department (IT does IT things, Sales sells things, Project Managers manage projects, etc.). When work is siloed in this way, these disparate teams support the mission of the organization strictly as it pertains to them, and often go without talking to other teams until they need something – or when something unexpectedly goes awry.
The jury is long in on the benefits of removing silos and working in cross-functional, collaborative teams. Organizations that adopt these ways of working, such as Agile, DevOps, and Lean, tend to deliver products and services to clients faster, with increased agility, and higher quality.
The business should not be separate from IT.
By simply making this name change to Strategic Portfolio Management and removing silo-centric IT, ServiceNow shows that it is making strides to break down those barriers and change the way organizations think.
Alignment with best practices across the enterprise
The ServiceNow platform is designed to support best practices across the enterprise in both terminology and functionality. Perhaps the best-known example of this is its alignment with the ITIL 4 framework for the IT Service Management module (among many others). But ITIL is far from the only best practice ServiceNow is aligned with.
“Strategic Portfolio Management” comes straight from the Project Management Institute (PMI), the world’s leading project management governing body and issuer of best practice guidance. The term was adopted by PMI as a way to address the shortfalls and gaps that come along with solely focusing on Project Portfolio Management (PPM) – or even just Project Management (PM) – i.e. not managing projects in a strategic, collaborative fashion. ServiceNow’s embrace of this term as it pertains to the module formerly known as ITBM reflects its commitment to aligning with the latest and greatest project management best practice.
What’s changed in the Strategic Portfolio Management module?
We’ve addressed the symbolic nature of the name change and its intent to encourage organizations to break down silos and embrace best practices across the enterprise. As for the SPM module itself, little has changed; the best practices were already there, some tweaks were made, but the bulk is unchanged from when it was known as ITBM.
For the sake of this article, I’ll take a quick look at the newest application added, Project Workspace. You can find the full list of updates in ServiceNow’s Strategic Portfolio Management Release Notes.
Project Workspace
If you’ve ever used a workspace in ServiceNow, you know its goal is to provide an additional user interface that specifically breaks down the needs of those who use the module on a daily basis. Project Workspace is no different; it provides a single UI to view projects, with drill-down capabilities to get to the data that you or your Project Managers need regularly.
The ability to see project tasks alongside timelines and who is working on what in a simple interface not only makes work easier on your Project Managers but promotes visibility by way of a user-centric interface. For more information, you can view the Project Workspace Release Notes or take a look at the below introduction to Project Workspace video.
ServiceNow is continuing to break down barriers by utilizing enterprise best practices and facilitating day-to-day work while maintaining visibility to all who need it. By simply changing the name of one of their more popular modules to be more inviting across the enterprise, they are proving just that.