Jul 16th, 2008 |
Last week I presented a basic continuous improvement cycle for Application Portfolio Management (APM). This week I will contrast this approach with that of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and demonstrate how these two disciplines can be combined for maximum effectiveness.
Application Portfolio Management is a bottom-up approach. You start by counting all of your eggs, and then go about measuring certain things about them. By nature of this approach, a certain view of the world is created. You see what you have, and what state it is in.
Project Portfolio Management creates a different view. This approach looks at which projects are being proposed or are underway, how these projects align with business goals and objectives, and what business value they bring to the organization. With this in mind, strategic investment decisions can be made to select which projects should receive funding, and which ones should not. PPM acts as a filter to maximize business and IT alignment. This view of the world is quite different than that produced by APM. APM looks at the assets that you have and how effective they are (“are we doing things right?”), and PPM looks at the projects that you should be doing (“are we doing the right things?”).
The best approach is to combine the top-down Project Portfolio approach with the bottom-up Application Portfolio approach. This will help ensure that you are “doing the right things right”. I will be talking about Project Portfolio Management in greater detail in a future blog, so stay tuned.
Next: What is an application, anyway?
