How ServiceNow Application Portfolio Management can support your DevOps transformation

Jochen Vos
Competence Lead SPM

Jochen has proven to be a goal-oriented and enterprising consultant with a strong analytic capability. With his experience he is able to advice customers about project portfolio management. He is able to give a clear understanding of his knowledge and insight, and achieves a high acceptance with his humor and persuasiveness. He has over a decade experience in advising clients how to organize project- portfolio management as well as hands-on experience as project manager, PMO-lead, change manager, engagement manager and trainer. As PPM knowledge lead Jochen is responsible to build upon the strong track record of Plat4mation on successful ITBM implementations with high customer satisfaction. [contact-form-7 id="1207" destination-email="jochen.vos@plat4mation.com"]

DevOps teams are built around (software) ‘products’ that fulfil a certain need that the organization or customers have. Teams are responsible for both maintaining the product including solving deviations that affect its performance as well as delivering the necessary innovations required to keep up with the expectations of customers and other stakeholders. But how do you make sure that these teams are working on the items that add the most value to the organization? And how do you know in which teams and products to invest? Let’s introduce you to Application Portfolio Management in ServiceNow.

Application Portfolio Management (APM) in ServiceNow

Traditionally, Project & Portfolio Management was used to manage innovations that were needed to support strategic business objectives. Projects were the main entity to define, manage and deliver business innovations.

With the arrival of Agile and DevOps, projects have been replaced by Programs, Epics, Value Streams, etc. But so far, true alignment on an organizational level has been a challenge. As if innovative methodologies were only applicable for delivery. But if strategy is insufficiently aligned with delivery, it will not maximize its return on investment.

Application Portfolio Management can fill this gap. It can link business capabilities to ‘software products’, which in turn can be linked to the underlying services and software items that support the capability. Assessments can provide insight in the fit/gap of a certain product and related capability. Gaps can be identified and translated into change initiatives. Change initiatives can be compared to one another, providing you the insights on what initiative will have the best cost/benefit ratio (business case). Furthermore, realization data enable you to steer and increase your agility by focusing on the right initiatives.

Application Portfolio Management in ServiceNow can aid your Agile transformation by connecting the products and services that are at the heart of your organization’s strategy. It allows you to effectively and efficiently drive innovations on initiatives that add the most value to your strategy. It will help you achieve set goals and improve your flexibility and agility through the inclusion of realization data.

Want to know more?

We can tell you all about Application Portfolio Management in ServiceNow and its value to your business. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to go over some use cases or would like to receive advice on how APM could help your business.

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