Build an Application Rationalization Framework

Manage your application portfolio to minimize risk and maximize value.

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Almost two-thirds of organizations report that they have too many or far too many applications due to sprawl from poorly managed portfolios, and application managers are spending too much time supporting non-critical applications and not enough time on their most vital ones.
The necessary pieces of rationalization are rarely in one place. You need to assemble the resources to collect vital rationalization criteria.
There is a lack of standard practices to define the business value that the applications in a portfolio provide, and without value rationalization, decisions are misaligned to business needs.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

There is no “one size fits all.” Applying a rigid approach to rationalization with inflexible inputs can delay or prevent you from realizing value. Play to your strengths and build a framework that aligns to your goals and limitations.

Impact and Result

Define the roles, responsibilities, and outputs for application rationalization within your application portfolio management practice.
Build a tailored application rationalization framework (ARF) aligned with your motivations, goals, and limitations.
Apply the various application assessments to produce the information that your dispositions will be based on.
Initiate an application portfolio roadmap that will showcase your rationalization decisions to key stakeholders.

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should rationalize your applications and why you need a framework that is specific to your goals and limitations, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Build an Application Rationalization Framework – Executive Brief

1. Lay your foundations

Define the motivations, goals, and scope of your rationalization effort. Build the action plan and engagement tactics to roll out the rationalization activities.

2. Plan your application rationalization framework

Understand the core assessments performed in application rationalizations. Define your application rationalization framework and degree of rigor in applying these assessments based on your goals and limitations.

3. Test and adapt your application rationalization framework

Test your application rationalization framework using Info-Tech’s tool set on your first iteration. Perform a retrospective and adapt your framework based on that experience and outcomes.

4. Initiate your roadmap

Review, determine, and prioritize your dispositions to ensure they align to your goals. Initiate an application portfolio roadmap to showcase your rationalization decisions to key stakeholders.

Guided Implementations

This guided implementation is a twelve call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Lay your foundations

Call #1 - Define the motivations and goals for rationalization and the metrics to gauge success.

Call #2 - Define “application” in your organization.

Call #3 - Identify rationalization activities, outputs, and the core APM team who will execute them.

Call #4 - Identify your first iteration.

Guided Implementation #2 - Plan and test your ARF

Call #1 - If required, adapt Info-Tech’s dispositions.

Call #2 - Define an initial AFR.

Call #3 - Understand how to use Info-Tech’s Application Rationalization Tool.

Call #4 - Apply the application assessments for business value, TCO, and technical health.

Call #5 - Perform a retrospective for your first iteration, and adapt AFR.

Guided Implementation #3 - Initiate your roadmap

Call #1 - Determine and prioritize your dispositions.

Call #2 - Roadmap your dispositions.

Call #3 - Build an action plan for next iterations and ongoing activities.

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Application Portfolio Management

Support your ongoing business objectives with a rationalized application portfolio while remaining aligned with your current and future technology needs.
This course makes up part of the Applications Certificate.

Course information:

Title: Application Portfolio Management
Number of Course Modules: 4
Estimated Time to Complete: 1-1.5 hours
Featured Analysts:
Ben Mackle, Senior Research Analyst, Application Practice
Allison Straker, Research Director, Application Practice
Now Playing: Academy: Application Portfolio Management | Executive Brief

Book Your Workshop

Onsite 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 onsite 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: Lay Your Foundations

The Purpose

Define the goals, scope, roles, and responsibilities of your rationalization effort.

Key Benefits Achieved

Defined motivations, long and short-term goals, and metrics for your rationalization effort.
Definition of application.
Defined roles and responsibilities for your rationalization effort.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Define motivations and goals for rationalization.

Goals, motivations, and metrics for rationalizations

1.2

Define “application.”

Definition of “Application”

1.3

Identify team and responsivities.

1.4

Adapt target dispositions.

Defined dispositions

1.5

Initiate Application Rationalization Framework (ARF).

Defined core APM team and handoffs

Module 2: Assess Business Value

The Purpose

Review and adapt Info-Tech’s methodology and toolset.
Assess business value of applications.

Key Benefits Achieved

Tailored application rationalization framework
Defined business value drivers
Business value scores for applications

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Review Application Rationalization Tool.

Application Rationalization Tool

2.2

Review focused apps, capabilities, and areas of functionality overlap.

List of functional overlaps

2.3

Define business value drivers.

Weighed business value drivers

2.4

Determine the value score of focused apps.

Value scores for focused application
Value Calculator

Module 3: Gather Application Information

The Purpose

Continue to review and adapt Info-Tech’s methodology and toolset.

Key Benefits Achieved

Tailored application rationalization framework
TCO values for applications
Technical health review of applications
Recommended dispositions for applications

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Determine TCO for focused apps.

TCO of focused applications
TCO Calculator

3.2

Determine technical health of focused apps.

Technical health of focused apps

3.3

Review APA.

3.4

Review recommended dispositions.

Defined rationalization criteria
Recommended disposition for focused apps

3.5

Perform retrospective of assessments and adapt ARF.

Module 4: Gather, Assess, and Select Dispositions

The Purpose

Review and perform high-level prioritization of dispositions.
Build a roadmap for dispositions.
Determine ongoing rationalization and application portfolio management activities.

Key Benefits Achieved

Application Portfolio Roadmap
Prioritized Dispositions

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Determine dispositions.

4.2

Prioritize dispositions.

Disposition Prioritization Tool

4.3

Initiate portfolio roadmap.

Application portfolio roadmap

4.4

Build an action plan for next iterations and ongoing activities.

Action plan for next iterations and ongoing activities

4.5

Finalize ARF.

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

Testimonial

Statistics Canada

Guided Implementation

9/10

$47,500

MSS Business Transformation Advisory, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$7,537

Allison's insight on the tools and next step recommendations was absolutely excellent! Duane

Darling Ingredients

Guided Implementation

7/10

$14,653

i did like the overall talk to see if we are on the right track. the (excel) templates are build to have several hunderd software packages (what is not in line with your advice) but therefore they are 8mb in size and not usable on-line and when reducing ...

American Honda Motor

Workshop

10/10

$12,742

Best: Schedule flexibility & pre-workshop coordination tasks were first rate. During the workshop, Allison & Scott explained processes with patience & professionalism, which effectively increased trust & participation. Allison & Scott shared the tools...

Government Employees Health Association Inc

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

MCS Healthcare Holdings LLC

Guided Implementation

9/10

$125K

No negative parts of the experience instead obtained a clear view of the implications and benefits of having a mature applications rationalization process.

Office Of The Comptroller Of The Currency

Guided Implementation

9/10

$125K

Motor Oil Hellas Corinth Refineries S.A.

Guided Implementation

9/10

$13,845

Sherritt International Corporation

Guided Implementation

8/10

$13,000

Parsons Inc

Guided Implementation

10/10

$628K

I like that the expert had practical experience to share and the framework to help convey the approach so that I can easily see an approach for myself. Ben is also very knowledgeable and don't try to go into the entire set of information and brings atte...

Fast Planet Consulting

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Bauer Hockey LLC

Guided Implementation

8/10

$12,742

Victorinox AG

Guided Implementation

9/10

$6,371

Debswana

Guided Implementation

10/10

$125K

Allison is very engaging and knowledgeable

LiveBetter

Workshop

9/10

$200K

BEST: Collaboration and involvement with Key Business stakeholders and the staff who are using the Applications in their day-to-day jobs, together with their team leaders and Functional Programme Managers The deep Technology Leadership and Technology A...

City Of Charlotte

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

State of Hawaii

Workshop

8/10

$63,711

HONDA NORTH AMERICA INC.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,733

United Federal Credit Union

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

The tools and the professionalism of the analyst.

Botswana Railways

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

The engagement was fruitful. It gave pointers which I believe will be useful.

University of Johannesburg

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Micheal was very comfortable to divert from the initial intention of the call. Gave some valuable information and pointers. He will ensure that I have sessions with expects in the areas that he does not specialise in. I have so much material to work through after this call, that is valuable for me.

Department of Energy- Richland Operations Office

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Keep up the good work!

Cengage Learning

Guided Implementation

7/10

N/A

Dollar General

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Uganda Revenue Authority

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Best Part:Clarity of content. We get to do things in a more systematic and professional way. Worst Part: We have been doing things the wrong way but we have learnt alot from the call.

Impact Assessment Agency of Canada

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

Sedgwick Cms

Workshop

8/10

N/A

The best part was having an experience facilitator (Randy) asking us (Sedgwick IT and Business) questions regarding the "Why" of modernizing. Randy helped us look at alternatives that we normally would just discount due to our "competitive advantage" with our outdated system. The worst part was probably that we didn't get a chance during the workshop to see the data in the different template tools and review it in person with Randy. That was due to time constraints but I would recommend maybe changing the agenda to allow for someone to input the tool more real time so there is something tangible by the end of the workshop.

Real Estate Council of Ontario 1

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Bob Barker Company, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,733

Best parts - Working with your Team! Sanchia is great! Worst parts - none that I can think of.

CBRE Pte Ltd.

Guided Implementation

10/10