Third, portfolio management gives business leaders responsibility for IT projects. "I'm no longer in a position where I have to sell these projects to the business," says Dade Behring's Edelstein. "If I'm doing a project for marketing, it's the marketing exec who has to sell the project to the rest of the team." Merrill Lynch's Balliet says, "When we started, the technology people were proposing the projects. Now the businesspeople propose the projects and [take responsibility] for risk profiling, ongoing operational costs and timeliness of delivery."

Finally, everybody knows where the dollars are flowing and why, which is especially important to CEOs and CFOs who are increasingly demanding that technology investments deliver value and support strategic objectives.

Review: Actively Manage Your Portfolio

A top-notch evaluation and prioritization process is emasculated rather quickly if the portfolio is not actively managed following approval of the project list. Doing that involves monitoring projects at frequent intervals, at least quarterly. At Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, a project management office, which reports directly to Senior Vice President and CIO Carl Ascenzo, has that responsibility. Once or twice a month, the project management office gets financial and work progress perspective updates from project leaders. That information goes into a database, and Ascenzo reports to the entire company monthly, giving the project inventory and its status. He assigns project status - green (good), yellow (caution) or red (help!) - and includes an explanation of the key driver causing a yellow or red condition. The IT steering committee meets once a month to make decisions to continue or stop initiatives, assess funding levels and resolve resource issues.

At CKE Restaurants, the IT steering committee meets monthly to review at least three of the initiatives under way. "In my opinion, quarterly is too long," says Chasney. CKE, under the Carl's Jr., Hardee's and La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill brand names, operates approximately 3,300 restaurants worldwide. Frequent reviews allow Chasney to redirect resources more quickly.

Monitoring project portfolios regularly also means projects that have run off the rails can be killed more easily. "People have an aversion to stopping projects, but the majority of projects I cancel are done because there's a change in company strategy - a change in priority or direction," says Chasney. For example, if there's a strategy decision to focus on SAPSAP, then it makes sense to cancel a new system that interfaces with PeopleSoft, he says. Chasney states another simple but powerful principle that eludes many companies: "You can't complete projects just because you started them." Alles zu SAP auf CIO.de