1. Key Elements of IT Portfolio Management
An IT portfolio rationalises and organises IT applications to meet specific business purposes. By
identifying the best combination of multiple applications and projects, you can enable and
optimize business processes and accelerate decision making on an executive level. The
analysis of current and future applications in the organization identifies gaps and shortcomings
to improve the IT portfolio. This greater visibility to projects creates a single source for each IT
portfolio, including potential investment.
Goal-Driven
IT portfolio management is driven by clear visibility of demands. Portfolio management can
improve performance through effective use of resources, funding, assets and processes to
maximise business value. You can manage budgets and prioritize projects based on an overall
budget. Much like a traditional stock portfolio, it requires a risk to reward analysis. Adopt a
management system that allows you to alter or cancel projects that provide a lower ROI.
IT portfolio management emphasises a strategic focus on goals such as revenue growth, cost
reduction, and business continuity, rather than operational objectives. It requires input from
across the organization, from finance managers to IT managers. The goal is to maximize value
through selection, optimization and monitoring.
Aligning Assets and Objectives
Proper portfolio management helps you understand the needs and necessities of specific
projects before implementation. Resources are another determining factor. Money, equipment
and more will determine the capability of completing a project. Portfolio management can focus
on developing a company's abilities taking into account short-term needs, technical debt and
other business cases.
In project portfolio management, you cannot strictly define the framework since projects vary
constantly. Taking the right approach is central to ensure you can enact change. Software
development often means lots of continuous work with a definite conclusion or part of a larger IT
project so it becomes important to develop the internal capacity of the company.
Analysis and Prioritisation
Analyze the current state and your expectations as the gap reveals the current and desired
state of project management. Gather a record of the existing projects in a single database, with
details like the length, estimated cost, business objectives, risk assessment and ROI. Check the
project management methods, processes and tools for any weaknesses. The core aim of this
exercise is to find out which projects achieve your company’s strategic goals and how they get
funded. Allocate resources to projects that guarantee optimal value.
To determine project worthiness, establish a completely up-to-date and prioritised project list. By
categorising the prioritization, you can fund projects that align most well with your company's
objectives. To help you in this, attach a valuation criteria to the projects according to their

2. importance. Relying upon company strategy can guide you in making a decision. If the project
does not align with the strategy, it will lose meaning.
Process Determination
As long as the portfolio suits your company's requirements, you can establish a framework. In
the implementation phase, define a plan of action to implement the processes and methods you
have defined such as an IT infrastructure. Come up with a concept and proceed with
implementation before going live.
Find out who your stakeholders are and the benefits they are looking for. From management
executives to staff members, each stakeholder can expect a different value proposition that will
determine your success.
Sustainable Continuous Improvement
Now that you have set up your portfolio, manage and review it regularly to monitor the portfolio.
Maintain regular follow-ups after the implementation. Managing a project portfolio is done on a
systematic, case-by-case basis. The more agile a company, the better they can allocate their
resources.
Portfolio management requires continuous work. The goals and progress of each project have
to be monitored continuously to ensure resources are in the right place. Your planning might
have been accurate but an inability to change those plans could lead to problems. To avoid this,
create an accurate estimation by planning upcoming projects and costs. Budget proposals can
differ from the original when you are not able to predict them accurately.
Streamline Portfolio management
Project portfolio management is about evaluating new and existing projects and continuously
prioritising resource allocation. Portfolio management helps detect redundant projects and
minimize scope for repetition to ensure all resources and assets are utilized most efficiently.
You can use portfolio management to your advantage by adopting data-driven processes,
compare costs and business values of projects and make informed decisions by assessing each
project separately. It is also possible to monitor costs, reduce expenses, and help executives
centralize project details. With this information, they can improve their communication,
knowledge and understanding of the current portfolio assets and improve the day-to-day
functioning of the business processes.
Agile Portfolio Management
Business environments change very quickly and companies have to be flexible to reallocate
their resources quickly. Agile methods can be used in product development but might run into
occasional roadblocks. Plan and budget carefully, taking into consideration the economic reality
and investments.

3. Being agile can be achieved through prioritisation and decision-making covering the entire
project portfolio. You can manage a project portfolio on several levels with a value-based
assessment determining each component. Write down your evaluation of that project.
It might not be always easy to create such a business case in advance due to parameters like
time, dependency and resources. Throughout the process, it is crucial to establish transparency
between stakeholders and in recognising value. Ensure that your stakeholders are with you
across each phase, customising it to the overall conditions in the company. Different projects
emphasize different parameters and planning challenges. Consider each scenario, their budgets
and compare them to each other for a smoothly functional project portfolio.