I Just attended a techbriefing of IBM about the Project management as a portfolio with IBM tools. and found articel on simillar concept. Protfolio management is really usefull for enterprenuers and IBM provides really good tools.
These are few excerpts from the Blog for IT Portfolio Management: Tips, Techniques, & Strategies
Feedback from this blog's subscribers seem to support the fact that IT Portfolio Management has been most focused on the sub-portfolio of new investments, despite existing IT investments continuing to receive ¾ of enterprise IT budgets.
Why is this? In addition to the fact that new investments are "sexier" and may not yet have any associated internal baggage accompanying them, our prior blog postured that another very real reason for this focus may be due to fear of "GIGO," garbage-in, garbage-out. How many enterprise organizations really understand their existing IT investments? Based upon a CFO Magazine article from December, 2003, "Analyze This," not so well...
( http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3011139/c_3046603?f=insidecfo ).
In this article, a study conducted by the Kellogg School of Management and DiamondCluster International indicated that "nearly half the survey group said their employers do not have their applications and infrastructure well-documented." As this survey is more than a year old, do this blogs' readers feel the results would be significantly different if conducted today?
One other possible reason for companies not understanding the state of their existing IT investments as well as they could is, quite honestly, fear. While new investments are at a stage of "no skin in the game yet," reviewing these using IT portfolio management tools are lower-risk, in terms of IT jobs and organizational structure. Reviewing existing IT investments might uncover issues, which taken positively, can be beneficially analyzed and addressed. Unfortunately, what sometimes occurs is analysis avoidance, not necessarily intentionally, but from a prioritization perspective. How does a CIO demonstrate a short-term ROI from a project to identify and document assets?
Ramifications of not having the requisite grasp of existing IT investments, as part of an overall IT portfolio management, can be significant. IT outsourcing typically doesn't happen if an IT organization is seen by its end-user customers, and executive management, as "best-in-class," both from an effectiveness perspective as well as from an efficiency perspective.
Our next blogs will look at how a good offense can be the best defense for an IT organization and how a holistic IT portfolio management approach can benefit IT strategy, at an executive level.
