Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices

Overview

The IF4IT Rationalization Postures framework defines four postures — Tolerate, Invest, Migrate, and Eliminate — that classify every application in the portfolio by the investment and action direction appropriate to its current assessment. This framework is commonly referenced in the industry as the Gartner TIME model, and organizations familiar with that terminology will recognize the same four postures under that name.

Portfolio rationalization requires a clear vocabulary for describing the strategic dispositions available for each application and the conditions under which each disposition is appropriate. Without a shared rationalization vocabulary, stakeholders describe the same conclusions in incompatible terms, plans are made without clear operational implications, and the portfolio map becomes a document of assessments without a coherent plan of action. A consistent rationalization framework creates the shared language that makes portfolio decisions understandable, comparable, and actionable across organizational boundaries.

Best Practice

Adopt something like the IF4IT Rationalization Postures model that is based on the Gartner TIME model (or similar) as a standard rationalization vocabulary for the APM program.

• Tolerate: the application has low or moderate business value and acceptable technical fitness - maintain it at current investment levels, reduce cost where possible through right-sizing or renegotiation, and do not invest in capability improvement.

• Invest: the application has high business value and good technical fitness - continue or increase investment to evolve the application in support of growing or changing business requirements.

• Migrate: the application has high business value but poor technical fitness or significant technical debt that constrains its evolution - the business need is real and must be met, but the current application is not the right long-term vehicle; invest in migration to a more technically fit solution.

• Eliminate: the application has low business value and poor technical fitness - retire it and redirect the resources it consumes to higher-value investments. Apply these dispositions consistently as the documented output of every application assessment cycle.

The four IF4IT Rationalization Postures mapped across the business value and technical fitness assessment dimensions. The Gartner TIME model is a common industry reference for the same framework.

Benefit(s)

The Gartner TIME model provides a clear, shared vocabulary for rationalization decisions that is immediately understood by both technical and business stakeholders. Portfolio maps produced using the Gartner TIME framework are actionable because each disposition implies a specific investment and operational direction. Leadership conversations about portfolio strategy become more productive because the rationalization options are clearly defined and the criteria for each are explicit and consistently applied. The organization develops a portfolio optimization cadence rather than episodic rationalization campaigns that start from scratch each time. Rationalization Postures describe what the organization should do with each application now, based on current assessment. They work in tandem with Strategic Dispositions, which describe where the organization intends to take each application over the strategic planning horizon — a distinction addressed in the next part.