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Rethinking Your Flight Plan: How Air Traffic Control Provides A Model For Successful IT Portfolio Management Introduction Ever wonder how 30,000 thousand planes can safely navigate U.S. airspace every day? While it often seems miraculous, it’s not exactly a mystery. Since commercial air travel began, we have evolved a highly complex system for protecting passengers and property both in air and on the ground. This system, known as Air Traffic Control, is how we monitor and manage the many moving pieces related to air travel— and it’s an intricate mechanism indeed. Every day, in fact, proper visibility and communication are the only things that come between hundreds of thousands of airline passengers and potential disaster. Case in point: In June 2013, two large commercial jets had a near miss in midair over New York City. A 747 Jumbo Jet was approaching JFK International Airport around the same time an E170 took off from LaGuardia Airport nearby. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, both planes were turning when Air Traffic Controllers realized they were far too close together. Reacting rapidly, a controller was

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able to alert and reroute the larger vehicle before the planes collided. While the FAA is still investigating what went wrong, two things remain clear: The smallest oversight can have massive consequences, and the only way to prevent or correct a misstep is to have the right tools, resources, and methodology in place. 1 So how, you might ask, does Air Traffic Control relate to IT Portfolio Management? Consider this. Your portfolio: • Also has many moving pieces • Involves many highly valuable resources that must be protected • Likely requires oversight

incredibly

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• Can cause a disaster if managed poorly But could you correct a “near miss” like the one over NYC? Would you even be able to spot a critical error in your portfolio before something catastrophic unfolded?

What does it take to manage your project and application portfolios with the efficiency and success rate of our Air Traffic Control operation?

1. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/21/travel/nyc-jfk-airliners-too-close

Air Traffic Control: Why it Works To answer that question, we must first look closer at what Air Traffic Control entails and why it works so well. • At first glance, we see the tools and technology that enable ATC personnel to gain the visibility they need to safely guide planes through takeoff, flight, and landing. These components are extensive, ranging from anticollision systems and flight software on planes, to radar control and towers, to the various communication mechanisms that allow ATC personnel to understand what is happening in every plane at all times.

• Of course, the methodology is also critical. This is the proven system of policies and procedures that enable the safe navigation of so many moving pieces through the same airspace at the same time. But underlying these elements are two additional and extremely critical pieces. • Successful air travel must involve the continuous management of resources. These resources are the people and materials that actually make air transportation possible—everything from airplane tickets before flights ever take off, to the airplanes themselves, to the highly trained pilots that fly the planes, to the dollars that finance the transportation, and so on. • Finally, there is the need for integration. All of these components—tools, technology, methodology, resources— must somehow be positioned to work together in order to provide complete visibility and an optimal outcome.

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Current IT Portfolio Management Problems Flying under the Radar At present, most organizations don’t have a portfolio management approach that resembles a successful air traffic operation. Instead, they have numerous projects and applications, typically siloed by function or business department. Project Managers run the new initiatives or projects that are captured via Project Portfolio Management (PPM); Application Managers run the existing architecture via Application Performance Management (APM). Resource Management is rarely considered a part of either portfolio but rather thought of as an ancillary function. This structure evolved over time and, at one point, made sense. However, our world today has grown increasingly complex. Not only do we have newer applications and highly dynamic business and technical requirements, but we also must contend with a regular surge of industry and government regulations, changing laws, and—most importantly—the blurring of boundaries across departmental lines. In today’s product lifecycle, for example, it would be almost irresponsible to think that Sales is unrelated to Product Development and Marketing, and vice

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Who runs the whole portfolio of IT projects and applications, if it ultimately affects everyone? versa. As we work to reduce time-tomarket or build greater efficiency in operations, everyone’s objectives— and therefore, their projects and applications—become interconnected to some degree. This is why we now refer to the collection as a portfolio. But who runs the whole portfolio of IT projects and applications, if it ultimately affects everyone? • Is it the Project Manager or Application Leader? Not likely. These folks wear blinders and can typically only see the specific project or application on which they work. • What about the IT manager? Nope. Burdened by budget concerns and technology requirements, the IT manager is usually unable to piece together so many projects and applications in a clear view.

• How about the CIO? Perhaps it should be—because they are the ones responsible in the end. But the CIO can’t be inundated with all the details. They demand a top-level view in order to address financial concerns while meeting overall business objectives. In other words, the current state of IT portfolio management is like airspace chaos: • Project and application managers are like pilots. They fly only their own planes and typically don’t care what other planes are doing unless they pose a threat. • IT leaders are like airline companies. They focus primarily on their technology and their budgets. They are running a different machine altogether. • CIOs are like ATC personnel. What they are tasked with affects everyone, but without any communication and overall visibility, they are set up to fail. Time to Clear the Flight Path If CIOs are to reposition themselves—and everyone under them—to successfully manage the entire IT project and application portfolio, they must be able to look at the portfolio from a new perspective. Just like Air Traffic Controllers, CIOs need to gain the integrated visibility and communication required to achieve the following goals:

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Strategic alignment - How do the current projects in my portfolio support the company’s strategic initiatives? What mix of potential projects, across new initiatives and legacy applications, will maximize long-range growth and ROI for the company? Air Traffic Control Must ensure all passengers and planes get where they are supposed to go. CIO or PMO Must ensure all projects and applications achieve the business objectives they are intended to serve. Operational performance - How does my operations framework support the strategic initiatives? How will the function of each project in my portfolio affect our stock price or bottom line? Air Traffic Control Must ensure all planes and systems function optimally in order to travel safely and efficiently. CIO or PMO Must ensure all projects and applications function optimally in order to maintain focus on objectives.

Resource optimization - Am I resourced effectively, and can I move quickly? How can I best use our human and financial resources on future projects? Air Traffic Control Must ensure all tools, technology, and personnel are managed for the most efficient usage. CIO or PMO Must ensure all tools, technology, and personnel are managed for the most efficient usage.

Cloud Portfolio Management Solutions for IT: Establishing Real Control The concept of Cloud Portfolio Management (CPM) for IT is not revolutionary. In fact, it’s just common sense. CPM simply makes it possible for projects, applications, and maintenance to be collectively managed to serve the needs of the business. But, you might wonder, why aren’t more businesses taking this approach already? The most obvious answer is that the vendor landscape for CPM solutions has been barren. Most providers, lacking in innovation or budget, have dissected this approach into either Project Portfolio Management (PPM) or Application Portfolio Management

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(APM), leaving out the truly integrated, functional whole. However, CPM doesn’t preclude addressing PPM or APM; rather, it offers a more effective way to leverage both of these approaches together. Innotas is unique on the vendor landscape because we provide a complete IT Portfolio Management solution using cloud-based applications for both APM and PPM. These applications provide the tools, technology, and methodology required to understand each project and application at every level, from objectives to costs. But, unlike competitors, we tie these elements together using the same driving principles as Air Traffic Control: • Demand Management. Innotas solutions help you receive and manage demand for projects and applications, from the time they are requested through end-of-life. • Capacity Planning. Innotas also provides for the optimization of all your portfolio resources, including budget, personnel, hardware, and more. • Integration. Unlike competitive solutions, Innotas applications integrate and work together to enable businesses to intelligently tackle both the high-level tasks that fuel the desire for growth (such as strategic alignment with business objectives) and the more root-level tasks that keep your critical applications (both legacy and new) running optimally.

• Dashboards & Reporting. Just as Air Traffic Controllers need clear visuals to gauge which planes are flying where, you need the ability to see both the top-line and bottom-line impact of your portfolio. Innotas makes it easy to get straightforward, realtime visibility into projects through intuitive dashboards and reports.

What Are the Advantages? When you apply a CPM approach, you gain significant benefits that aren’t possible through separated APM or PPM solutions. Transparency and visibility lets everyone see clearly and act quickly. With a clear sight line into every project and application—including resource usage—everyone involved can access the information necessary to make faster, more informed decisions. In turn, this minimizes the risk of poor planning at the start of a project, which, according to a 2012 global project management survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, is a leading cause for project failure. 2

Top-down management removes the burden of focusing on details for those at a higher level. Imagine if Air Traffic Control teams had to concern themselves with the intricacies that each pilot deals with during a flight. We’d be in grave danger. ATC personnel cannot afford to be mired in details from every gauge and dial. Like CIOs, they need big-picture capabilities in order to do their jobs successfully—yet when organizations attempt PPM or APM from a bottom-up approach, they lose the big picture completely. Gartner analysts uncovered this truth in the 2012 MarketScope for Project and Portfolio Management Software Applications, stating that “many initial PPM software investments failed when this bottom-up approach to project portfolio management was chosen, due mainly to the high levels of complexity, low levels of adoption and extensive organization change management required to get the entire execution side of a project organization using the same system.” 3

Likewise, greater, true integrated visibility into your comprehensive portfolio of new initiatives and sustaining operations promotes more efficient resource usage, with a common model that helps people at all levels of project management meet strategic and budget goals.

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2. Insights and Trends: Current Portfolio, Programme, and Project Management Practices: The third global survey on the current state of project management. PriceWaterhouseCoopers. 2012. 3. MarketScope for IT Project and Portfolio Management Software Applications, Gartner (Daniel Stang, Robert Handler), 27 June 2012.

A top-down approach, on the other hand, improves a CIO’s ability to measure and manage IT regardless of how she structures her organization. Essentially, when you start by ensuring that the person at the top sees what she needs to see, you can then naturally guide those underneath to the most strategic views

for their own needs. This same kind of downward momentum enables ATC personnel, effectively controlling airspace from a higher-up perspective, to clear the path—so pilots can focus on the task of flying, airlines can focus on their commercial business, and so on.

Conclusion Our airspace is a vast and complex entity that requires some of the most intricate management on the planet. Naturally, a mechanism that succeeds in this arena can serve as an ideal model for a more effective and integrated approach to IT Portfolio Management. As you work to implement this approach in your organization, remember that your total portfolio involves many moving parts, many people, and many systems. It’s not enough to have visibility into just one of these areas at a time. For example, if ATC personnel try to manage only the airspace over California, they will not succeed in ensuring the safety of every other plane in the country. And in the long run, that kind of single-minded perspective ultimately endangers the planes over California as well. Bottom line: Effective management of an IT portfolio requires an integrated, comprehensive approach that promotes alignment of strategy, optimization of performance, and the most efficient use of resources. Innotas is a clear winner in this space. By integrating APM and PPM, while incorporating end-to-end resource management and optimization, Innotas provides complete transparency and visibility across the whole organization. In turn, Innotas solutions help you accurately gauge the way your projects and applications impact strategic objectives, so you can discover new value and soar past competitors.

About Innotas:

Innotas provides a ground-breaking cloud-based IT Governance solution — an easy-to-use, rapid-to-deploy, and cost-effective way to manage resources and budgets across an IT department’s entire inventory of projects, portfolios, applications, assets, and service requests. With its strong foundation in Project Portfolio Management and Application Portfolio Management, Innotas provides CIOs and IT managers with visibility across both strategic initiatives and sustaining operations for improved decision making across the entire IT portfolio.

Innotas 111 Sutter Street, Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94104 Tel: +1 415-263-9800 Toll-free: 1-866-692-7362 www.innotas.com

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