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What is Application Portfolio Management?

A portfolio is an organized set of related items, such as Information Technology (IT) systems, applications, assets, intellectual property, people, and projects.

An application is defined as any server-based software running in the NASA environment that is not included as part of the standard desktop/laptop load.

Portfolio Management is the systematic use of data, processes, and tools to enable better decision making.

One of five OCIO strategic initiatives, Application Portfolio Management (APM) is a process that organizes applications into relevant portfolio categories so their performance can be assessed. This information can then support better decision making about how the organization should make IT investments.

Portfolio Owners make decisions about the portfolios they own. The APM process provides them with the data that they can use to make more informed and better decisions. For example, the Office of Human Capital Management (OHCM) owns human resources applications; the OCIO lets OCHM know how well applications are performing so that OCHM can make informed investment decisions.

Relationship Managers are stewards of the APM process. They maintain information about each IT application in use in an organization, including:

  • Business value produced
  • Cost to build and maintain the application
  • Expected lifespan
  • Technical attributes of the application.

Using this information, a relationship manager is able to work with the portfolio owners to facilitate the process of consistently evaluating the performance of the portfolio of applications, identifying and recommending improvement opportunities, and sharing best practices across NASA.

NASA’s APM initiative will include a framework and processes, a team of dedicated resources, and enabling technology. The NASA APM process will also facilitate upkeep of a NASA-wide application data repository and support application portfolio analyses that inform executive-level decision making.

NASA’s APM will focus on four main portfolio categories:

  • Business Applications
  • Infrastructure Applications
  • Project Management Applications
  • Science and Engineering Applications

Why use Application Portfolio Management?

Today, NASA’s application environment is diverse. Having evolved during the last 50 years, the current application landscape includes an accumulation of layers of applications with complex interrelationships and varied architectures and technologies. APM is an onging process aimed at making sense of the layers of applications, understanding the full spectrum of attendant issues, and realigning the portfolio in keeping with NASA’s architecture, standards, governance and strategic direction.

It’s really about implementing a repeatable process to assess what we have, and, if an application is not performing or does not meet our architectural requirements, eliminating it and replacing it with a better performing application. We’re doing it to try and reduce the money we spend on maintaining existing applications (that don’t perform well) and freeing up that money to invest in new and better performing applications.

Based on a preliminary analysis of data from April 2008, the NASA application environment includes more than...

  • 3,100 identified applications
  • 7,000 internal and external websites
  • 80 asset management systems
  • 100 training management applications
  • 450 instances of budgeting systems.

Some of the issues caused by the current environment include...

  • Lack of enterprise-wide visibility that leads to unknown security vulnerabilities, potentially unnecessary costs and risks, and inconsistent technology use
  • Decentralized security management and infrastructure configurations that inhibit cross Center and program collaboration
  • Redundancy of data center infrastructure and IT support that leads to inefficient use of resources
  • Conflicting process and application standards that lead to difficulties in integration.

Application Portfolio Management helps to resolve these issues by:

  • Providing visibility into the current application environment and issues
  • Facilitating potential opportunities for reducing the size and complexity of the overall NASA application environment
  • Identifying improvements to established applications and new applications that cross traditional program and Center boundaries
  • Improving collaboration between Centers, Missions, and IT
  • Increasing system reliability resulting in the ability to better manage risk and security issues
  • Reducing overlapping/duplicative functionality
  • Promoting standards for increased interoperability and information sharing across organizational boundaries

NASA’s APM will achieve measured improvements through a phased approach. Once fully implemented, the APM service will include:

  • An end-to-end process that enables consistency in the approach to managing NASA’s applications
  • A network of roles and people that participate in the process on a regular basis
  • Standards within multiple categories by which applications are measured to identify key gap areas
  • Enabling technology in the form of a decision support platform, which facilitates the storage of application profile data, accessibility to information by stakeholders, and data manipulation tools to conduct “what if” analysis against stored data

Centers, Missions, and IT will be able to glean more value from applications to raise service levels and improve the use of information.

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