Does your business use Information Communications Technology (ICT)? The chance is yes, the question that must be asked is are we getting enough value from our investment in ICT?

Project Management (PM) techniques have been used for many years with great success however, with Projects becoming ever larger and merging into Programs, we see flaws emerging in the use of the old PM techniques.

Now that Programs are themselves becoming larger still and these are now merging into Portfolios, the size & influence of ICT is growing. There is a need for a dramatic change in the management and control in this new area of Portfolio Management.

Portfolio Management is still in its infancy, however research has paved the way for a paradigm change and a greater strategic view to be taken of ICT projects. In today’s business environment we need to more closely align and link ICT projects to Business strategy, but before we can control projects in this way we first have to measure the contribution individual projects make to the Business strategy.

The area is evolving rapidly. Many companies are focusing on the perennial cost-cutting and in ‘sweating-the-assets’ trying to gain the last few ‘miles-per-hour’ and the final few ‘miles-per-gallon’ out of their formulae-one ICT race car. However, what is often not realized is that the race-track their ‘car’ is on is more like a battlefield where a tracked or four-wheeled drive vehicle is more suited to the business terrain!