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Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management

Ensure you are investing in high-value IT services with a well-managed service portfolio.

  • There are no standardized processes for the intake of new ideas and no consistent view of the drivers needed to assess the value of these ideas.
  • IT is spending money on low-value services and doesn’t have the ability to understand and track value in order to prioritize IT investment.
  • CIOs are not trusted to drive innovation.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • The service portfolio empowers IT to be a catalyst in business strategy, change, and growth.
  • IT must drive value-based investment by understanding value of all services in the portfolio.
  • Organizations must assess the value of their services throughout their lifecycle to optimize business outcomes and IT spend.

Impact and Result

  • Optimize IT investments by prioritizing services that provide more value to the business, ensuring that you do not waste money on low-value or out-of-date IT services.
  • Ensure that services are directly linked to business objectives, goals, and needs, keeping IT embedded in the strategic vision of the organization.
  • Enable the business to understand the impact of IT capabilities on business strategy.
  • Ensure that IT maintains a strategic and tactical view of the services and their value.
  • Drive agility and innovation by having a streamlined view of your business value context and a consistent intake of ideas.
  • Provide strategic leadership and create new revenue by understanding the relative value of new ideas vs. existing services.

Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Service portfolio management enables organizations to become strategic value creators by establishing a dynamic view of service value. Understand the driving forces behind the need to manage services through their lifecycles.

1. Establish the service portfolio

Establish and understand the service portfolio process by setting up the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

2. Develop a value assessment framework

Use the value assessment tool to assess services based on the organization’s context of value.

3. Manage intake and assessment of initiatives

Create a centralized intake process to manage all new service ideas.

4. Assess active services

Continuously validate the value of the existing service and determine the future of service based on the value and usage of the service.

5. Manage and communicate the service portfolio

Communicate and implement the service portfolio within the organization, and create a mechanism to seek out continuous improvement opportunities.


Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Transport Canada

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

N/A

This was a really good session that enlightened me on an area outside of my usual scope, which I expect to use for a stronger strategy overall. Alt... Read More

Toronto Police Service

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

2

Best...found something not that I thought of. Worst...nothing

Statistics New Zealand

Guided Implementation

7/10

$2,421

10


Workshop: Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Establish the Service Portfolio

The Purpose

  • Establish and understand the service portfolio process by setting up the Service Portfolio Worksheet.
  • Understand at a high level the steps involved in managing the service portfolio.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Adapt the Service Portfolio Worksheet to organizational needs and create a plan to begin documenting services in the worksheet.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Review the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

  • Knowledge about the use of the Service Portfolio Worksheet.
1.2

Adapt the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

  • Adapt the worksheet to reflect organizational needs and structure.

Module 2: Develop a Value Assessment Framework

The Purpose

  • Understand the need for a value assessment framework.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Identify the organizational context of value through a holistic look at business objectives.
  • Leverage Info-Tech’s Value Assessment Tool to validate and determine service value.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Understand value from business context.

  • Alignment on value context.
2.2

Determine the governing body.

  • Clear roles and responsibilities established.
2.3

Assess culture and organizational structure.

  • Ensure there is a supportive organizational structure and culture in place.
2.4

Complete the value assessment.

  • Understand how to complete the value assessment and obtain a value score for selected services.
2.5

Discuss value assessment score.

  • Understand how to interpret the service value score.

Module 3: Manage Intake and Assessment of Initiatives

The Purpose

  • Create a centralized intake process to manage all new service ideas.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Encourage collaboration and innovation through a transparent, formal, and centralized service intake process.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Review or design the service intake process.

  • Create a centralized process for service intake.
3.2

Review the Service Intake Form.

  • Complete the Service Intake Form for a specific initiative.
3.3

Design a process to assess and transfer service ideas.

  • Have a process designed to transfer approved projects to the PMO.
3.4

Design a process to transfer completed services to the service catalog.

  • Have a process designed for transferring of completed services to the service catalog.

Module 4: Assess Active Services

The Purpose

  • Continuously validate the value of existing services.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Ensure services are still providing the expected outcome.
  • Clear next steps for services based on value.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Discuss/review management of active services.

  • Understand how active services must be assessed throughout their lifecycles.
4.2

Complete value assessment for an active service.

  • Understand how to assess an existing service.
4.3

Determine service value and usage.

  • Place the service on the 2x2 matrix based on value and usage.
4.4

Determine the next step for the service.

  • Understand the appropriate next steps for services based on value.
4.5

Document the decision regarding the service outcome.

  • Formally document the steps for each of the IRMR options.

Module 5: Manage and Communicate Your Service Portfolio

The Purpose

  • Communicate and implement the service portfolio within the organization.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Obtain buy-ins for the process.
  • Create a mechanism to identify changes within the organization and to seek out continuous improvement opportunities for the service portfolio management process and procedures.

Activities

Outputs

5.1

Create a communication plan for service portfolio and value assessment.

  • Document the target audience, the message, and how the message should be communicated.
5.2

Create a communication plan for service intake.

  • Document techniques to encourage participation and promote participation from the organization.
5.3

Create a procedure to continuously validate the process.

  • Document the formal review process, including cycle, roles, and responsibilities.
Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management preview picture

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

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Get the help you need in this 5-phase advisory process. You'll receive 10 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Establish the service portfolio
  • Call 1: Review the Service Portfolio Worksheet.
  • Call 2: Adapt the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

Guided Implementation 2: Develop a value assessment framework
  • Call 1: Complete the culture and organizational structure assessment.
  • Call 2: Complete the Value Assessment Tool for different services.

Guided Implementation 3: Manage intake and assessment of initiatives
  • Call 1: Review and design the service intake process.
  • Call 2: Review and adapt the service intake form.

Guided Implementation 4: Assess active services
  • Call 1: Assess the value of a few existing services.
  • Call 2: Determine the appropriate next steps for the assessed services.

Guided Implementation 5: Manage and communicate the service portfolio
  • Call 1: Create a communication plan.
  • Call 2: Create a monitoring process to address feedback.

Authors

Valence Howden

Paul Brown

Kimberly Jiang

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