Welcome to this week's
    Practical IT Manager Tips Newsletter

This week's article:  Start an IT Initiatives Portfolio
In this article we discuss the benefits of maintaining an IT Initiatives Portfolio for your organization, why, and how to go about it.

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Start an IT Initiatives Portfolio

In past articles you have heard me discuss the importance of identifying appropriate IT initiatives to focus on for your company. I also place importance on prioritizing these initiatives properly in order to provide the best value for the company.

Did you also know that it is vitally important for you to keep track of the results of your technology initiatives?

Think of it like this. If you have a stock portfolio, you try to pick winning stocks. When you buy stocks, you track how well each stock performs to help you evaluate individual stock performance, trends, and overall portfolio performance. At a minimum, you have to do this for tax reporting purposes at the end of each year.

As an IT Manager or CIO you want to track your technology projects and measure their performance just as you would track stocks in a stock portfolio.

That's why I create an IT Initiatives Portfolio.

What is an IT Initiatives Portfolio?
Similar to a stock portfolio, an IT Initiatives Portfolio includes a list of all IT project initiatives under your management responsibility. Key information is included for each project initiative that helps you measure its ultimate performance.

As a CIO, I maintain an IT Initiatives Portfolio for each of my IT managers and roll them up into an overall company wide portfolio. The reason is that I want to track the results of each manager and understand his/her trend in delivering projects on time and within budget. It helps me know who to help.

An example will provide more insight later in the article.

What are the benefits
There are many.

First, an IT Initiatives Portfolio helps you quantify where your successes and failures are. It also allows you to measure consistency in implementing projects and how well your teams are getting the results expected in these efforts.

Second, when your managers and employees know you are tracking each project's performance, they tend to pay closer attention. It becomes important to them to deliver their projects on time and within budget.

Third, it gives you meaningful information that will help you evaluate the performance of managers and leaders within your IT organization. You can spot trends and identify who to help.

Fourth and possibly most important, an IT Initiatives Portfolio gives you the information that will help you report results of your organization's efforts to senior management. It is a tool that helps you be a more proactive manager which is something we all need more of in our company.

Continue to page 2 for an example and the rest of the story.


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Mike Sisco
MDE Enterprises
3300 Stillcorn Ridge Road
Columbia, TN 38401
mike@mde.net
931-490-6932
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