Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices

Overview

An APM program without a formal continuous improvement process tends toward stability rather than growth - it maintains the capability level it has achieved rather than advancing toward the next maturity stage. This is partly because APM is inherently absorbing - maintaining a governed, current, accurate portfolio is a demanding ongoing activity that consumes most of the capacity that continuous improvement requires. And it is partly because improvement requires deliberate investment in the future at the expense of operational capacity in the present, which organizational pressures consistently favor against. A formal continuous improvement process creates the organizational commitment and dedicated capacity that advancement requires rather than allowing it to remain an aspiration deferred by operational demands.

Best Practice

Establish a formal APM continuous improvement process with defined governance, dedicated capacity, and a structured annual improvement planning cycle. At minimum, conduct an annual APM maturity assessment that evaluates the program against the Crawl-Walk-Run maturity framework across all APM dimensions: governance, inventory quality, financial management, assessment rigor, rationalization execution, tooling maturity, and reporting effectiveness. Based on the maturity assessment, define a specific improvement roadmap for the coming year that identifies the three to five most impactful capability improvements, assigns ownership, allocates capacity, and defines the success criteria that will confirm improvement has been achieved. Review improvement progress quarterly alongside portfolio health reporting to maintain accountability for advancement as well as for ongoing operations.

Benefit(s)

A formal continuous improvement process prevents the APM program from plateauing at whatever maturity level it has achieved at the end of its initial implementation phase. The annual maturity assessment provides an objective, repeatable baseline against which progress is measured rather than an impression-based assessment of whether the program is improving. The improvement roadmap creates specific, owned, resourced commitments to advancement that are accountable to governance rather than aspirational intentions that compete with operational demands and consistently lose. The program advances steadily through the Crawl, Walk, and Run maturity stages rather than stabilizing at a level that delivers partial value when full capability is achievable.