Deciding about IT: IT Portfoliomanagement in 19 Major Organizations in the Netherlands Anno 2010

Getting value from IT investments is mentioned as one of the reasons why organizations should pay attention to IT governance. (Applegate et al (2009)). As far as the IT governance of IT is concerned, IT portfolio management is often viewed as a condition, without which it is difficult to fit in IT investment optimally within an organization's requirements. (Dhillon, et al (2010)). This article is about this IT portfolio management and discusses the state of affairs in the Netherlands in the year 2010. The article consists of two parts. The first part explains the theory on which the study is based. Regarding this, the conditions for enabling introduction of portfolio management, its governance and organization, the data which is used in portfolio management and the possible results of performing portfolio management are discussed. The second part maps the actual practice of each of these four areas in the Netherlands. It may be concluded that the examined organizations particularly focus on IT project portfolio management. The department that carries out this portfolio management, is often part of a staff department which is also involved in other tasks. The reason for starting portfolio management is the vast number of large projects, resulting in a lack of insight and overview. In general, the data for controlling portfolios is centrally available. The level of control of ICT portfolios varies per sector. Furthermore, the data in the portfolios is immediately related to the objective of the portfolio management. In the portfolio management process, people in over 50% of all cases use spreadsheets (Excel) and/or simple database applications (Access) for registering the data. In the Netherlands, portfolios are not used for arriving at indicators or for benchmarking.