Client Problem

Our government client manages a large engineering construction and maintenance program. The client had moved from fragmented regional management of ICT to a centralised approach about 18 months before the SMS review. Portfolio management of ICT was introduced by the client at that time to properly prioritise and manage all of their ICT work.

The purpose of the review was to assess the effectiveness of the new governance arrangements for ICT, to gauge the
maturity of portfolio management, and to make appropriate recommendations for continued improvement.

SMS Approach

SMS discussed and agreed with the client on a set of key success factors for portfolio management. These were derived from relevant SMS portfolio management principles and were consistent with the basic principles of the VAL-IT standard and the P3M3^TM maturity model.

The SMS reviewers then interviewed ICT portfolio owners, ‘customers’ and other stakeholders, seeking evidence that the agreed key success factors were understood and being applied. Relevant documents were also assessed, and this assessment resulted in a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the portfolio maturity.

SMS prepared a report and short presentation summarising our observations and recommendations. An important element of the SMS’ approach was to recognise current impressive achievements by the client, and share an encouraging vision of what could be done in the twelve months before the next review.

We drew attention to the important role played by the whole of the client’s top management team in successfully choosing and managing the ICT portfolio, and offered suggestions of how top management governance of the ICT portfolio could be improved.

Recommendation

SMS recommended that the client:

• Make specific but realistic improvements in some of the key success factor areas over the next twelve months;
• Clarify portfolio ownership and governance above the ICT governance committee;
• Retain the excellent sponsorship on ICT portfolio management from the head of the organisation; and
• Review their progress in twelve months.

Outcome

Our client broadly accepted SMS’ findings and recommendations and immediately commenced work focused on the achievement of the key recommendations. The CEO supported a portfolio management approach and the CIO was already committed to it. The review assist to strengthen their resolve to further improve ICT project selection, prioritisation and resourcing.

The CEO asked for SMS’ presentation of findings and recommendations to be made available to the full Senior Management Group rather than to just the ICT subcommittee. This resulted in SMS’ advice about more focused and measured implementation of strategy being considered by the client’s full management team.