I have worked as CIO / IT Manager / IT Director of several companies. I often experienced challenges in trying to secure long-term decisions on IT development and the deployment of IT resources. As the demands from the organization grew at an increasingly faster pace the decisions became increasingly short-term. Often there were too many simultaneous projects and little or no coordination. Those who had the greatest influence were often afforded the highest priority.
All departments within the company had a need of IT development using the same resources, but each needed differing kinds of IT development. There could be adjustments in applications, implementation of the new ERP or CRM, but also direct "firefighting" to address urgent problems.
Obviously I wanted to increase our ability to deliver optimal business benefit and that meant, above all, that we needed to prioritize, since the resources were limited.
A prerequisite for people to share the same priorities is to have a common understanding of what is most important, but that is not always easy to understand, especially if the organization does not understand IT development fully. Everyone just wants their issues resolved as quickly as possible. Most people who work in IT organizations can probably recognize themselves ere. To gain greater efficiency you need to prioritize the project portfolio.
Prioritize the project portfolio, but in what way? And by who?
A number of methods and processes can be introduced into the IT organization to gain more control and improve internal efficiency, including ITIL, Scrum, Kanban, Cobit, etc. But this is not enough on its own to achieve high efficiency of the organization as a whole.
I considered what we would need in order to do a better job of delivering business value to the organization. I came up with the need for a method and application for prioritization of the project portfolio with a focus on:
- A clear process for prioritizing the project portfolio - how the project portfolio will be prioritized.
- Fewer projects at a time to obtain greater efficiency - faster delivery at a lower cost.
- Prioritize the project portfolio - get it anchored within the organization to gain higher commitment.
- Appropriate application: intuitive, easy to grasp and easy to use - even for a management team that is short on time.
I began searching for prioritization methods, reading and studying a lot of articles, books, theses, dissertations, etc. The subject is not trivial because everyone involved has a bias, that is, their own agenda. Everyone wants to influence their own projects so that they remain prioritized. Most prioritization methods are highly simplified and are easy to effect. (Most projects risk obtaining high or the highest priority.) Other methods are complex and difficult to use on a regular basis.
AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) was the method I decided to use. The development of AHP began in the 1980s and has been studied and verified. AHP is primarily used in the academic world and requires a lot of calculations. The method is easy to use since it is based on pairwise comparisons. One only needs to take into account each individual comparison; there is no need to keep track of all the complex relationships during prioritization.
We have developed an easy-to-use web application which is based on the method; it includes additions to make it possible to compare the various group priorities for creating consensus, API, adding company profile, etc. The application has been developed with the user and usage in focus.
Please enjoy!
Mats Olsson
