Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) Best Practices

Overview

A technology record without a named owner is a technology asset without accountability. When no specific individual is identified as the owner of a given technology record, governance obligations fall to whoever happens to notice a problem, institutional knowledge concentrates in whoever has been working with it longest, and lifecycle decisions are never made because there is no one with the authority and accountability to make them.

Best Practice

Assign a named, individual Technology Owner to every record in every Technologies Inventory type. The Technology Owner must be a specific person, not a team, a department, or a shared mailbox. The Technology Owner is accountable for: maintaining the accuracy and currency of the technology’s inventory record; ensuring the technology’s lifecycle status and Standards Register classification are current; reviewing and responding to security vulnerability disclosures; coordinating version currency remediation across the applications that use the technology; and conducting or scheduling the technology’s annual governance review. Establish a periodic ownership verification process — at minimum quarterly — that confirms every technology record has a current, active, named owner and escalates orphaned records for resolution.

Benefit(s)

Named individual ownership for every Technologies Inventory record creates the personal accountability that sustains technology governance quality over time. Technology Owners have a direct stake in their technology’s currency, compliance status, and responsiveness to security and lifecycle events. Governance decisions move faster because there is always a clear point of contact. Orphaned technologies are surfaced through the verification process and addressed before they accumulate unremediated risk.