By Alan Joch

Too much business demand for too few IT resources? End-to-end portfolio management can help. It focuses on two critical areas that CIOs can use to more efficiently balance their finite resources against a seemingly infinite demand for new projects. First, the solution can help CIOs identify which projects deserve to be undertaken or supported. Second, this improved prioritization can be dynamically linked to real-time planning of people, skills and other IT supplies.

When it comes to prioritizing IT projects, “most organizations can’t do everything they want,” says Lisa Erickson- Harris, Research Director at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a high-technology analysis and consulting firm in Boulder, Colo. “Some look to portfolio management as a way to evaluate tradeoffs and get their priorities straight by looking at the risk and investment variables.”

Portfolio management can help CIOs transcend the simplistic pass/fail mentality often assumed when evaluating new projects. Saying “yes” to every initiative can produce what Tim Newman, an executive in Accenture’s IT Strategy and Transformation practice, calls “catastrophic helpfulness.” Here, IT departments commit blindly to new project demand, only to experience delivery issues later. But saying no all the time isn’t the solution, either. CIO naysayers risk missing out on key opportunities. Portfolio management helps CIOs steer a middle course, making more rational decisions that better serve the business’s most critical needs. Not incidentally, this can also help CIOs raise their credibility and standing with the business. “If CIOs can demonstrate how they are planning, investing and delivering on commitments, their credibility in the organization goes way up,” says Erickson-Harris.

Another benefit: Portfolio management can help end the common practice of planning IT investments only at budget time. Instead, CIOs can now hone their project and resource investments every day of the year. “You can’t operate IT as if business conditions only change on the first of January every year,” says Accenture’s Newman.

To help CIOs jump-start portfolio management implementations, Accenture and CA have teamed to create the Accenture Investment Portfolio Management Solution with CA Clarity™ PPM. The solution preconfigures CA Clarity PPM screens and reports with summaries of an organization’s investment strategies and business goals from the Accenture solution. The result aims to help CIOs link their business goals and IT investments. “You need only a minimum level of information and some effective dashboarding capabilities to see how well actual results align with targets,” says Peter Bologna, Accenture’s Senior Manager of Portfolio Management Capability.

CA Clarity PPM offers the tools for developing the investment priorities and workflow mechanisms needed to govern projects from initial idea to commitment. It also provides a user interface — featuring electronic dashboards — that helps managers analyze the schedules and skills required for a project.