Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices

Overview

Post-close application integration without a roadmap is integration by urgency - the highest-pressure integration needs are addressed first, in isolation from each other, without a coherent plan for how the combined portfolio will look when integration is complete and what sequence of decisions and investments leads there. Integration decisions made without a roadmap frequently create new integration technical debt, produce a combined portfolio that is more complex and more expensive than either predecessor, and leave rationalization opportunities unrealized because individual integration decisions are not coordinated with each other or with the overall portfolio rationalization strategy.

Best Practice

Develop an application integration roadmap within the first ninety days after deal close, using the pre-close portfolio assessment as its foundation. The roadmap should define the target state of the combined application portfolio - which applications from each portfolio will be retained, which will be rationalized, and how the retained applications will be integrated - and the sequenced plan for achieving that target state over a defined horizon. Sequence integrations to enable the business outcomes that the deal thesis requires first, then address portfolio rationalization in an order that manages dependency and organizational change risk. Include resource requirements, timelines, milestone-based progress tracking, and the financial benefits expected from each major roadmap milestone.

Benefit(s)

A post-close integration roadmap provides the coherent direction that individual integration decisions need to contribute to a desirable combined portfolio outcome rather than to a locally optimized but globally suboptimal integration result. Integration decisions are coordinated rather than independently made by teams without visibility into each other’s plans. Rationalization opportunities are pursued systematically rather than missed because individual integration decisions are not connected to a portfolio-level strategy. Progress is visible and measurable against the roadmap rather than only visible through the accumulation of individual integration completions that may not be moving the combined portfolio toward its intended destination.