IT Portfolio Management
Last Updated: June 14, 2010 by DDB.
Portfolio management is a foundational process within IT Governance. When fully implemented, portfolio management provides visibility into what IT assets exist, ensures that IT resources are focusing on projects that provide the best value for the organization (i.e. alignment with institutional goals and priorities), and identifies how resources are allocated. Portfolio management enables objective and transparant investment and prioritization decisions . The information flow for portfolio management is illustrated here.
New! At the end of 2009, we updated a self-assessment 'Report Card' of our progress towards an ambitious set of institutional business objectives and goals for Portfolio Management, available here Report Card.
Portfolio management helps to answer the "Four Are" questions associated with IT initiatives:
- Are we doing the right things?
- Are we doing them the right way?
- Are we getting them done well?
- Are we getting the promised benefits?
However, we initially have to answer two "What" questions:
- What IT assets do we currently have?
- What IT projects are we currently working on and/or planning to work on?
These latter questions are the short-term focus of our Guelph PMO. When we can answer these two "What" questions with accessible on-line repositories on a sustainable basis (i.e. with processes that keep the information current), we will have achieved Level One Maturity for portfolio management!