IT Portfolio Management Step-by-Step: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology

TWO MAJOR INITIATIVES TO TRANSFORM IT: MANAGED PORTFOLIO AND MANAGED DEMAND

Gogel, Carlson, and their team envisioned two major initiatives to transform IT. These two initiatives, implemented in sequence but closely interrelated, were designed to drive down the cost of routine, "keep-the-lights-on" IT activities to free more funding for strategic projects, while more effectively governing both kinds of activities with improved visibility and control.

The first major initiative encompassed a program management office (PMO) to manage delivery of projects and a formal portfolio management system for evaluating and prioritizing strategic IT projects. The PMO was initially set up to manage $100 million of mostly discretionary spending, including all mandatory regulatory and compliance initiatives, via a set of standard and consistent metrics.

The second major initiative was to implement an automated demand management system to capture all routine requests on IT, insert business governance, and manage fulfillment of the demand. Requests captured by the new system include a wide range of typical IT activities for which no consistent corporate- wide processes existed, and which were largely handled manually at significant expense. Purchases of hardware and software; employee additions, subtractions, and moves; password resets; and similar activities contributed to a $135 million annual O&M budget for this "keep-the-lights-on" portion of IT. The demand management initiative would be implemented ...