Comments on: 4 Steps to Manage Your Technology Portfolio http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio Just another WordPress site Thu, 06 Nov 2014 02:53:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.41 By: Wearables: A 2013 Top Technology Trend for Business — CIO Dashboard http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-229 Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:19:13 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-229 […] You don’t want to chase a fad without business value or get left behind. Balancing your technology portfolio is a delicate dance that involves making the right investments at the right times for the right […]

]]> By: Ralph Hofman, BlinkLane Consulting http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-224 Sat, 30 May 2009 09:42:20 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-224 Technology Portfolio Management is a real challenge. I fully agree with the former comments, that managing the application portfolio and managing the technology portfolio are inseparable. From a business point of view, however, the part that adds business value is only the application portfolio. So having to deal with managing the technology portfolio is not one of the core activities for most businesses.
To me, this all the more reason to look for solutions were you get your applications as a service. By contracting software as a service, you are able to outsource the technology portfolio management part.

]]> By: Ralph Hofman, BlinkLane Consul http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-228 Sat, 30 May 2009 09:42:00 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-228 Technology Portfolio Management is a real challenge. I fully agree with the former comments, that managing the application portfolio and managing the technology portfolio are inseparable. From a business point of view, however, the part that adds business value is only the application portfolio. So having to deal with managing the technology portfolio is not one of the core activities for most businesses.
To me, this all the more reason to look for solutions were you get your applications as a service. By contracting software as a service, you are able to outsource the technology portfolio management part.

]]> By: Michael Keen http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-223 Sat, 30 May 2009 03:42:00 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-223 It all comes down to the understanding and the proper management of the IT life cycle and IT Portfolio Management. Without this critical component along with EA, IT Governance, this situation is doomed to be repeated time and time again.

]]> By: Michael Keen http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-227 Sat, 30 May 2009 03:42:00 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-227 It all comes down to the understanding and the proper management of the IT life cycle and IT Portfolio Management. Without this critical component along with EA, IT Governance, this situation is doomed to be repeated time and time again.

]]> By: Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist, PMP http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-222 Fri, 29 May 2009 23:24:52 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-222 Application Portfolio Management is just as critical as the Technology Portfolio Management you aptly describe. You need both disciplines to have any chance of knowing asset value, criticality and risk – the information necessary to make related investment (project and program) and operational decisions.

And Peter Kretzman brings up a very critical point above. The primary reason to apply portfolio management discipline to technology and application assets is to enable business-related interpretations and characterizations. It is critical for IT to be able to make a direct correlation between the assets in these portfolios and the services they provide to the business. This correlation is then factored into the associated SLAs that provide the business context and information to make business decisions in regard to those portfolio assets.

Consider the grocery chain example in the post: The discontinuation of vendor support will have a direct affect on IT’s ability to continue meeting negotiated SLAs. In response to the vendor move, IT would use the information in these portfolios to determine the subsequent affect on the SLAs and present associated ramifications to the business. The conversation would look something like this:

“The vendor has discontinued server support. If we do not move to a new server infrastructure, here is the affect it will have on your SLA for the service supported by the antiquated infrastructure – service levels will degrade to this extent while service cost will increase to this extent. Here are the investment alternatives and their associated services levels and costs.”

It now becomes a fact-based business decision to stay on the existing infrastructure (and resulting SLA impact) or invest in new infrastructure and a newly negotiated SLA.

The reason we have “IT Projects” is because we don’t have these portfolios and the critical information they provide to enable us to make the essential correlation between our technology assets and the business services they provide.

Thanks for providing some great advice in regard to changing this intolerable situation.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/

]]> By: Steve Romero, IT Governance Ev http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-226 Fri, 29 May 2009 23:24:00 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-226 Application Portfolio Management is just as critical as the Technology Portfolio Management you aptly describe. You need both disciplines to have any chance of knowing asset value, criticality and risk – the information necessary to make related investment (project and program) and operational decisions.

And Peter Kretzman brings up a very critical point above. The primary reason to apply portfolio management discipline to technology and application assets is to enable business-related interpretations and characterizations. It is critical for IT to be able to make a direct correlation between the assets in these portfolios and the services they provide to the business. This correlation is then factored into the associated SLAs that provide the business context and information to make business decisions in regard to those portfolio assets.

Consider the grocery chain example in the post: The discontinuation of vendor support will have a direct affect on IT’s ability to continue meeting negotiated SLAs. In response to the vendor move, IT would use the information in these portfolios to determine the subsequent affect on the SLAs and present associated ramifications to the business. The conversation would look something like this:

“The vendor has discontinued server support. If we do not move to a new server infrastructure, here is the affect it will have on your SLA for the service supported by the antiquated infrastructure – service levels will degrade to this extent while service cost will increase to this extent. Here are the investment alternatives and their associated services levels and costs.”

It now becomes a fact-based business decision to stay on the existing infrastructure (and resulting SLA impact) or invest in new infrastructure and a newly negotiated SLA.

The reason we have “IT Projects” is because we don’t have these portfolios and the critical information they provide to enable us to make the essential correlation between our technology assets and the business services they provide.

Thanks for providing some great advice in regard to changing this intolerable situation.

Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/

]]> By: Peter Kretzman http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-221 Thu, 28 May 2009 16:48:15 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-221 Excellent article. However, your final question #1 is where the rubber hits the road. Many/most IT areas are completely inundated with user-driven projects (as it should be), taking up all available resources. The conundrum then becomes how to do things like necessary technology refreshes and “sell” these to a skeptical clientele who just wants their functionality and who collectively yawn at IT technobabble (to them) like “middleware” and “protocol.” Everything has to be business-driven in the end, I firmly believe, but it’s a catch-22: users tend to drive only what they understand and which benefits them directly. Education up and down the chain is an ongoing process to counteract all this.

]]> By: Peter Kretzman http://rocketpanther.com/ciostage/it-management/manage-technology-portfolio#comment-225 Thu, 28 May 2009 16:48:00 +0000 http://www.ciodashboard.com/?p=422#comment-225 Excellent article. However, your final question #1 is where the rubber hits the road. Many/most IT areas are completely inundated with user-driven projects (as it should be), taking up all available resources. The conundrum then becomes how to do things like necessary technology refreshes and “sell” these to a skeptical clientele who just wants their functionality and who collectively yawn at IT technobabble (to them) like “middleware” and “protocol.” Everything has to be business-driven in the end, I firmly believe, but it’s a catch-22: users tend to drive only what they understand and which benefits them directly. Education up and down the chain is an ongoing process to counteract all this.

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