target audience: TECH BUYER Publication date: May 2024 - Document type: IDC PlanScape - Doc Document number: # US52021124
IDC PlanScape: Strategic Portfolio Definition, Management, and Balancing
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Abstract
This IDC PlanScape proposes and discusses ways in which organizations can define IT portfolios aligned with strategy and manage these portfolios in a more holistic way in response to changes in priorities or any other internal or external environmental factors.
It is critical to align the technology portfolio around the organization's critical initiatives, critical constituencies, or some other strategic measure. It is also crucial that the organization be able to adjust and revise the technology portfolio at the strategic level. This reduces the need to manage the details of the elements of the technology portfolio — the specific projects in the portfolio — thus keeping the focus of the organization on alignment of the portfolio and allowing adaptability of the specific projects in the portfolio. Stated differently, the strategic focus on the organization should be at the portfolio level while the constituent projects in the portfolio can be revised, re-prioritized, or replaced and the teams focus on successful project delivery.
Defining, managing, and balancing portfolios at the strategic level also reduces the chance that the organization — by focusing on the collection of specific technology projects — mistakes activity for accomplishment.
"As the role of technology becomes more important in the present and future of the organization, technology projects must make meaningful progress on the organization's strategic imperatives. Doing this represents 'accomplishment,'" says Niel Nickolaisen, adjunct research advisor for IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP).