The concept of Application Portfolio Management first came into existence during the 1990s but it’s benefits came into surface in the early 2000s. Organizations worldwide began their preparations as they started discovering that a large number of applications used by them would soon be redundant as well as expensive to maintain as they would hardly offer any business value.
The applications in most of these organizations were not cataloged in an easy and search-friendly manner. This meant that there was a need for reviewing the application portfolios. Also, businesses obtained a clear idea of the advantages they could derive from these applications.
Requirements of application portfolio management
There are three facets involved in application portfolio management. These include grouping, governing and management tools. Grouping is perhaps the most important function involved in application portfolio management. In this scenario, applications that include similar functions are assessed according to their financial values and cataloged in a way that makes it easy to analyze them at a later period at multiple levels.
APM also needs to incorporate an ongoing process to ensure that all the future developments that include upgrades and other fixes or changes in the application are recorded. This is the governance part of application portfolio management where the processes are implemented at the same time when applications are rationalized and this ensures that the entire process is effective.
The next essential factor is an APM system which helps automate the process and provides the CIO with an overview of the value, risk and the number of applications that are present within an organization. These tools also provide a closer look at each of the groups within an organization and enable the IT infrastructure of an organization to be aligned closely with priorities such as budget as well as other business strategies.
Successful implementation
Successful implementation of application portfolio management in an organization is only possible when all the three factors that is, the software, governance and grouping takes place seamlessly. Here are some key questions you need to answer to ensure successful implementation of application portfolio management in your organization.
- Is an executive sponsor available?
- What are the needs of the executive sponsor?
- What are the needs of the stakeholder and the cross-functional stakeholder?
- What are the factors involved in the success of your organization?
- What methods have been identified earlier to determine value?
- Are the goals of your organization phased on the basis of timeline for evaluation?
- Are the most crucial parameters of application data determined?
- What are the methods applied to analyze the data crucial to your organization?
- Which methods are being applied for data governance?
- What are the methods being applied to ensure the quality of data and ownership?
