Written by
Matt Farahmand
Published on
04/2025
Introduction
Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) projects frequently encounter obstacles—not from a lack of vision but due to insufficient collaboration. The intake and prioritization stages are critical as they transform ideas into actionable initiatives. During this period, effective engagement with stakeholders and initiative contributors is paramount; however, ServiceNow’s native tools often fall short.
In a recent collaboration, we successfully designed and implemented a streamlined SPM portal tailored to address these challenges. This innovative solution fosters a seamless experience for stakeholders, contributors, and strategy teams, enhancing alignment and engagement from intake through execution. The portal is specifically crafted to facilitate collaboration, thereby ensuring a more efficient and user-friendly feedback loop throughout the initiative lifecycle.
When Collaboration Becomes a Roadblock
ServiceNow’s out-of-the-box SPM application offers robust functionality for strategic planning, prioritization, and execution for the SPM managers and leaders but falls short when it comes to easy collaboration with business stakeholders and initiative resources—especially during the early stages.
To collect input or ask follow-up questions, project teams often resort to three options:
- Granting access to the Strategic Portfolio Workspace, which is powerful but complex and intimidating for occasional users
- Building custom intake forms on a portal which can be time-consuming and inflexible
- Falling back on email which leads to fragmented communication and lost context
Each of these channels creates friction. Contributors become disengaged, communication becomes inconsistent, and project teams are left chasing information across disconnected tools.
Designing Simplicity Into Strategic Collaboration
We built a robust and user-friendly SPM portal that offers a clean, intuitive interface tailored specifically for stakeholders and initiative contributors. This portal transforms how teams engage during intake and prioritization—and keeps them involved through execution.
Key features include:
- Simplified access: Contributors only see what’s relevant to them, with no need to navigate the full SPM workspace
- Guided collaboration: Friendly, focused screens guide users through questions, updates, and feedback
- Role-based interactions: Stakeholders see initiative details, submit input, and respond to follow-ups—all from one place
- End-to-end lifecycle support: From intake to prioritization to execution, teams collaborate in a structured, consistent environment
Because it’s built entirely on the ServiceNow platform, the portal maintains full data integrity, access control, and platform-native integration—without adding third-party tools or off-platform workflows.
Conclusion
By introducing a purpose-built portal, we’ve helped our customers transform SPM from a siloed, PMO-driven process into a collaborative, organization-wide effort. Stakeholders and initiative resources stay engaged, and strategy teams get the structured input they need—at every stage of the initiative lifecycle.
This thoughtful UX design isn’t just a “nice-to-have”—it’s essential for driving adoption and realizing the full value of ServiceNow SPM.
If you’re encountering similar challenges with your SPM process, we would love to demonstrate how a purpose-built collaboration portal can make a difference and reduce your costs and implementation timeline. Let’s talk. We are here to assist you in unlocking the full potential of your ServiceNow SPM investment.
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