Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices

Overview

Application lifecycle transitions - particularly deprecation and retirement - create service continuity risks that service management teams must plan for in advance. When an application that supports an active service is deprecated without coordinating with the service continuity planning process, the service continuity plan may reference an application that is being phased out, leaving the organization with a continuity plan that cannot be executed as documented when it is needed most. Service continuity planning that is not connected to the application portfolio lifecycle is planning that becomes progressively disconnected from operational reality as the portfolio evolves.

Best Practice

Establish a formal connection between the APM lifecycle governance process and the service continuity planning process so that application lifecycle transitions automatically trigger review and update of the service continuity plans that reference the affected applications. When an application transitions to Deprecated status, notify the owners of all service continuity plans that reference it and require those plans to be reviewed and updated before the application reaches its retirement date. When an application is retired, confirm as part of the retirement completion checklist that all service continuity plans have been updated to reflect the retirement and that continuity for the services the application supported has been formally addressed.

Benefit(s)

Connecting application lifecycle decisions to service continuity planning ensures that continuity plans remain operationally accurate as the portfolio evolves rather than becoming a collection of documented procedures that reference applications that no longer exist in the form assumed by the plan. Organizations whose continuity plans are current and accurate can execute them effectively when continuity events occur. Organizations whose continuity plans reference retired or significantly changed applications discover the gap at the worst possible moment - during an actual continuity event when there is no time to investigate and remediate the outdated documentation.