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| Application Portfolio Management - Today, major
organizations have many information systems.
A common problem today is how to handle and
gain control of this great number of systems. |
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| The application
portfolio management process |
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The picture shows
the way to handle the whole application
portfolio. It is important to understand
the current situation by collecting
all applications. It is when it is known
what one has that one can measure and
be able to manage applications in the
future. |
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| The application
portfolio management methodology |
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| Find all
current applications (AS IS) and collect them
in a database |
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| To
have an overview and control over the application
portfolio it is necessary to have a dynamic
documentation, a system to keep track of all
the applications. This system has to contain
information about the applications and it
is important to identify what kind of information
the users want to know about them. There is
also a need to find all the current applications
and by that get the “As Is” portfolio. |
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| Manage the
database |
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If
the application database is going to survive,
it is a must that users are included and motivated
to use the system. People are used to being
a little bit reserved concerning the survival
of such a system. This is because they had
experienced that similar projects about application
inventories ended up with the information
being stored on an excel sheet and ended up
in a bookshelf without ever being read. Because
the information was not available for the
users, the up-dates were not easily reached
and therefore the database had no value at
all for the users. The solution can come from
an application web or citrix enabled.
For database
survival it is also important to clarify who
is responsible for what. Usually different
roles exist in an organization and a good
idea is to use these to build up responsibility
areas regarding the application database.
It is important to accurately define the roles
and their responsibilities clearly. |
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| Classify
applications |
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| To handle
an application portfolio and to make an analysis
of the As Is condition, the managers have
to classify the applications. This is done
to be able to make future decisions about
the portfolio. It allows also to find the
right amount of attributes for the applications
to be assessed. Do not define too many attributes,
or end users will not fill in all information,
and do not use too few because the future
system will not supply correct information
and the system will have no value. |
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| Analysis |
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| Based on
the application classification, the results
are read and put together in an analysis.
The analysis can provide information such
as where the applications are in the life
cycle and its business contribution. |
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| Plan for
a future portfolio (TO BE) |
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Based on
the analysis results, the future could be
planned. For instance, application portfolio
could allow to analyze future business contribution
of existing, planned and potential applications.
An application can be defined as high potential,
strategic, key operational or support depending
on its current or expected contribution to
the business success. |
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From the four different
states picture, recommendations and
suggestions can be discerned about how
applications should be managed. Applications
that are in the high potential phase
are important to identify to find out
if they have any value to the business.
This prevents one from investing in
an application that will not live up
to the organization demands. |
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