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CIOs/ IT Directors who want to leverage new technologies to lead their organization
into the digital age efficiently
Enterprise Architects who want a holistic overview of the IT landscape for transformation
analysis and future state architecture design to support CIO decisions on the IT portfolio
Today's organizations face global warming, the Corona pandemic, cyber-attacks and talent scarcity. They're also confronted with technological changes such as digitization and AI. Therefore, the CIO's office is under continuous pressure to transform the IT landscape. IT portfolio managers and architects need transparency and a single source of truth to design future state architectures and make decisions on cloud transformations, cost optimization, application rationalization, and IT modernization. For this, they turn to application portfolio management.
The value organizations get from application portfolio management
Application Portfolio Management Plus (APM+)
The Real Benefit of Application Portfolio Management Software
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Application portfolio management is a continuous management process that assesses and evaluates portfolios against criteria important for the organization for decision making on how to transform the application landscape
Application portfolio management is a management approach that allows the structuring of large IT landscapes by grouping applications (e.g. based on functionality or dependency) into portfolios which are then managed as a whole
Managing large landscapes in portfolios is the only way for managers to gain control and transform towards a future vision
What is applications portfolio management?
There are many reasons to use enterprise architecture to support application portfolio transformation. All these reasons relate to the organization-wide view enterprise architecture provides and how it enables collaboration with other teams. For example...
A prerequisite for successful application portfolio management is to inventory applications and define meaningful portfolios, for example, by grouping related applications. Enterprise architecture information is valuable in change discussions because it provides the relations between applications and their context – a portfolio might hold applications related to the IT portfolio manager, a specific business capability, data, business process, or technology.
Application portfolio management should never be a standalone process but integrated and aligned with other related disciplines such as project portfolio management, strategic management, requirements management and enterprise architecture to translate business strategy to IT portfolio changes. Enterprise architecture provides this enterprise-wide view and plays a crucial role in application portfolio management to transform the IT landscape toward the company's future vision.
Additionally, enterprise architecture has the unique capability of facilitating collaboration between different internal teams. This is essential for application portfolio management, where stakeholders need to capture different perspectives of IT or project portfolio assets.
Why Enterprise Architecture for
Applications Portfolio Management?
Application Portfolio Management Allows Stakeholder Collaboration on a Change Platform
Use Cases For Optimizing Your Applications Portfolio
Organizations' rationale for using applications portfolio management may differ depending on their situation.
Organizations' rationale for using applications portfolio management may differ depending on their situation.
Typical APM Objectives & Business Value
C-level management of large, information-intensive organizations often lacks a good overview of the IT landscape because information on IT assets often exists in silos. This makes it impossible for decision-makers to estimate the impact that changes will have on the landscape, for example relating to the strategy, projects, or to the application portfolio.
A key objective of application portfolio management is to provide transparency and quick time to value. Moreover, the enterprise architect is often tasked (apart from gaining transparency) to design the future IT landscape.
1. Quick start or refresh the application portfolio management initiative
With the right applications portfolio management software (that can design target and futures states to support decisions on applications portfolio transformation), enterprise architecture teams have the armor to consult with IT portfolio managers to drive IT transformation.
The COVID pandemic has spurred the need for digital transformation projects. Organizations are looking at the cloud to scale transformation projects quickly and cost-effectively as an enabler for faster time to value. This includes IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS scaling digitization efforts. According to Gartner, Inc. "By 2027, more than 50% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business initiatives."
Cloud transformation is a concrete portfolio change activity to modernize the IT portfolio. To be successful and efficient, cloud migration requires a repeatable change approach.
2. Cloud transformation
The right applications portfolio management software supports best practices, such as 6R assessment, to provide CIOs full visibility into the applications’ landscape transformation. Enterprise architects provide a holistic overview to teams involved in the transformation and the option to drill-down into future state architecture designs and demonstrate how landscapes change over time.
Application rationalization is the radical reshuffling of an application portfolio as part of an application strategy. It's a plan that implements application changes to achieve a business outcome. Application rationalization often occurs after an IT organization accumulates an unmanaged collection of applications through shifting business strategies or mergers and acquisitions. The cleanup can include replacing, retiring, modernizing, or consolidating applications.
A main challenge for organizations is to develop and execute an application strategy that rationalizes their legacy portfolio and, at the same time, prepares for fast-emerging business requirements and new technologies. This requires making smart (investment) decisions based on clear information and made by the right people. This is achievable by using the right software and approach for application portfolio management and connecting enterprise architecture with application portfolio management and other teams.
3. Application rationalization
Choosing the Right Application Portfolio Management Software
When considering applications portfolio management software, ensure that it can meet all your objectives. Check that it includes the following capabilities:
Most of the application portfolio management software on the market today helps you to establish an application inventory, but it includes limited functionality for multi-dimensional analysis and future state designs and scenarios. This leads to cluttered information in different tools resulting in duplicate work for team members involved in changing the application landscape, for example, to find and harmonize information regarding applications and their changes.
A typical setup scenario is the following: Architects use different sources, such as ServiceNow and Microsoft® PowerPoint or Visio. When they make changes to these architectural designs, it doesn't reflect in the applications' repository and vice-versa. This leaves cluttered information about transformations in silos without an end-to-end overview, impact analysis, and drill-down options. The result is that architects' value contribution is lowered due to time-consuming duplicate work in terms of finding and harmonizing the latest architectural drawings and portfolio information upon which the CIO and IT portfolio managers base their decisions.
RED ALERT: Why 'Future State Architecture Design' Functionality is Essential in Software
Bizzdesign's APM+ out-of-the-box solution is built on our collaborative change platform, Bizzdesign Horizzon. APM+ covers all the phases of application portfolio management with full transparency of your current application estate and supports analyses for future application transformations.
APM+ includes predefined dashboards providing transparency, impact analysis, and transformation planning. Additionally, APM+ includes lean architecture design templates which use the essence of ArchiMate to connect portfolio analysis with change designs.
Our solution helps architects and application owners to combine cluttered data from various sources, identify the most relevant changes required, and raise efficiency in architecture designs – more so if you use generated architecture diagrams at the beginning of change initiatives. The portfolio dashboards in APM+ are based on design principles to support your communication with IT leaders.
Our solution is designed to mature organizations' applications portfolio management discipline. Leverage best practices, knowledge and thought leadership gained from Bizzdesign's 23-years heritage in enterprise architecture.
Bizzdesign’s Out-of-the-box Solution: Application Portfolio Management Plus
Data integration and decentralize data maintenance
To get the data right, you’ll need a combination of easy (Microsoft Excel) and advanced (modern API tools) for data integration and decentralized maintenance.
Analysis and visualization
Get insights on existing and enhanced data and make assessments and management-ready visualizations
Ability to make recommendations for portfolio change
Improve fact-based decision-making and support actionable statistics to create portfolio change recommendations for decision-makers.
Support for all the phases of application portfolio management
To give full transparency in your current application landscape and support analyses for future application transformations, it’s essential that the software covers all the phases of application portfolio management.
Functionality to do future architecture design
Architects’ roles are shifting to provide decision support and guidance to C-level management. To provide C-level with insights and to design future state application architecture, you’ll need to design using a single platform and best practices architectural languages. This enables full traceability from strategy to transformation design.
(Source) Cloud transformation over time. Bizzdesign's APM+ supports best practices for cloud transformation (6R analysis)
Why ‘Future State Architecture Design’ is a Key Differentiator
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Application Portfolio Management – Why Should You Care
Application Portfolio Management Software:
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Aplication Portfolio Management
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Date: Wednesday 22nd February
Time: 9 AM CST (US), 4 PM CET
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