IT portfolio management

At its most mature, IT portfolio management is accomplished through the creation of three portfolios: Application Portfolio - Management of this portfolio focuses on comparing spending on established systems based upon their relative value to the organization. The comparison can be based upon the level of contribution in terms of IT investment’s profitability. Additionally, this comparison can also be based upon the non-tangible factors such as organizations’ level of experience with a certain technology, users’ familiarity with the applications and infrastructure, and external forces such as emergence of new technologies and obsolescence of old ones.

Infrastructure Portfolio - This For an organization's information technology, infrastructure management (IM) is the management of essential operation components, such as policies, processes, equipment, data, human resources, and external contacts, for overall effectiveness. Infrastructure management is sometimes divided into categories of systems management, network management, and storage management. The ability of organizations to exploit IT infrastructure, operations and management sourcing/service solutions not only depends on the availability, cost and effectiveness of applications and services, but also with coming to terms with solution providers, and managing the entire sourcing process. In the rush to reduce costs, increase IT quality and increase competitiveness by way of selective IT sourcing and services, many organizations do not consider the management side of the equation. The predictable result of this neglect is overpayment, cost overruns, unmet expectations and outright failure.
ICT Project Portfolio - This type of portfolio management specially addresses the issues with spending on the development of innovative capabilities in terms of potential ROI, reducing investment overlaps in situations where reorganization or acquisition occurs, or complying with legal or regulatory mandates. The management issues with project-oriented portfolio management can be judged by criteria such as ROI, strategic alignment, data cleanliness, maintenance savings, suitability of resulting solution and the relative value of new investments to replace these projects.