NASCIO releases EPM issue brief
The National Association of State Chief Information Officers released Thursday the first in a series of issue briefs focused on enterprise portfolio management.
“We’re kicking off our series on portfolio management and IT investment management with a foundational piece on issues,” said Jack Doane, co-chair for the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture and Governance Committee and director for the Information Services Division in Alabama.
He continued: “Everything we do starts with a business need, or an issue. It is at that beginning where we need to initiate a discipline for evaluating and prioritizing the demand side. That is the issues portfolio. We need to be deliberate in deciding what to tackle – what to tackle alone – and what to tackle in collaboration with another agency or jurisdiction.”
According to NASCIO, state CIOs are managing a growing and diverse set of investments, services and collaborative arrangements. Enterprise portfolio management is a discipline that provides the tools and best practices necessary for doing this proactively and successfully. EPM provides a view into the enterprise — not only projects but also services, operations, programs and resources.
“The state CIO manages a number of portfolios,” said Carolyn Parnell, co-chair for the NASCIO Enterprise Architecture and Governance Committee and chief information officer for the State of Minnesota.
She continued: “While there may be some inconsistencies in how these portfolios are managed today, our ability to build discipline and consistency across the board is growing. Enterprise portfolio management is maturing. And we’ll see that maturity reflected in both the demand side and supply side of project management. As we consider options for delivering successful projects we also have more viable options today including cross-jurisdictional collaboration. These are all elements of the enterprisewide portfolio.”
