Chapter 2. Know Your Properties

Project management is an integral part of business operations for any IT shop: To the CIO, the shop itself is a strategic project. The domains of vice-presidents can be viewed in much the same light. The collected systems under program managers are essentially development efforts in motion. Project managers, of course, are responsible for development operations at the most fundamental level. With such different responsibilities and different viewpoints, is it not surprising that unexpected mission conflicts may arise?

Perhaps what’s needed is a way for the organization to maintain current mappings and models of its operational systems so that activities at all of these levels—refinements, extensions, and modifications—can be made in an efficient and effective manner. One approach used to provide this control is the practice of portfolio management. Its emerging importance stems from the complexity of most technology environments. Few business systems operate in isolation. Touching one system typically means touching many others, often without effort or even intent. Without some form of portfolio management, then, executive, program, and project management can move only with a greatly diminished view of the enterprise’s sphere of operations. That narrowed view can curtail organizational and project performance in very real ways. This chapter looks at the fundamental importance of portfolio management, to underscore why an IT shop needs to understand what properties it has, how those properties contribute to operational success, and how those properties may be affected by the initiation of new projects and implementations of new functionality.