A.3. Managing an Enterprise Software Portfolio

For most organizations, their enterprise software delivery challenges are dominated by the need to manage a large, complex portfolio of solutions that have been developed, acquired, inherited, and upgraded over a significant period of time—often several decades [87]. Hence the need to support new business activities is severely limited by the need to continue operation of existing systems. The consequence is that the vast majority of related spending is used to maintain ongoing operations. Many such organizations view their highest priority to be activities aimed at business continuity, and they carefully monitor the ratio of their investments between running the enterprise and changing the enterprise.