Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) Best Practices

Overview

TPM platform vendors present their products in terms of license costs and capability feature lists that are the minimum information needed to make a sound tooling investment decision. The total cost of owning and operating a TPM platform over a realistic three to five year period includes implementation costs, data migration costs, integration costs, customization costs, training costs, ongoing administration costs, upgrade costs, and the organizational change management costs associated with transitioning governance workflows from the current approach to the platform-based approach. Evaluating platforms on license cost and feature lists without accounting for these additional cost dimensions consistently produces investment decisions that underestimate the total platform investment and overestimate the speed at which the platform will produce governance value.

Best Practice

Evaluate all TPM platform options using a comprehensive total cost of ownership model that accounts for all material cost dimensions over the evaluation horizon. The total cost model should include: the platform license or subscription cost over the evaluation horizon; the implementation cost, including the professional services investment for configuration, data migration, and integration; the integration cost, including the effort required to connect the platform to the other Enterprise Model inventories through APIs or data exchange; the training and change management cost, including the investment required to train governance practitioners and Technology Owners on the new workflows and to manage the organizational transition from current to platform-based governance processes; the ongoing administration cost, including the internal and external resources required to administer, configure, and maintain the platform throughout its operational life; and the upgrade and renewal cost, including the investment required for major platform version upgrades and the expected license cost escalation over the evaluation horizon. Compare the total cost of ownership across all evaluated options, and compare the total cost of each option against the continued cost of the spreadsheet-and-AI approach to assess whether the platform investment produces a governance quality improvement that is worth its total cost.

Benefit(s)

Total cost of ownership evaluation of TPM platform options produces investment decisions that are grounded in the realistic financial commitment the platform represents rather than in the license cost that vendors feature most prominently in their commercial proposals. Organizations that complete total cost of ownership evaluations before platform selection consistently make better platform choices than those that select on license cost and feature lists, because the total cost evaluation surfaces the cost dimensions that differentiate platforms in ways that feature lists do not.