European Parliament

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 European ParliamentInformation Technologies
Directorate IT Portfolio management in the
EP

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The EP

• Legislative body of the European Union
• Composed of
• 785 members ( assistants)
• Political groups
• 5800 employees in the administration
• 3 locations (many buildings)
• General Secretary in Luxembourg
• Members meet in Commission in Brussels
• Plenary session in Strasbourg once a month
• 23 official languages
• 10 General directorates
• IT is part of the General directorate for
  innovation and technological support

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The past

• Local Support Assistant performed a yearly
  inventory of DG business requests including
  requests for PCs, printers, etc
• Lack of visibility of Local Support Assistant
  regarding development requirements
• Many unplanned requests during the course of the
  year
• Lack of transparency in resource allocation
• Increase in the number and size of requests not
  in the budget
• The amount of work required by DGs is more than
  three times the DITs current capacity

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The requirements

• Need to improve the planning of IT development
  activities
• More comprehensive, more transparent
• Need for an adequate decision process
• Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
• Is the science of selecting the right projects
  and monitoring their performance after selection
  in the portfolio
• Leveraging good information to make good
  decisions
• Ensures alignment of projects with strategies and
  resources availability
• Provides the structure and process for good
  governance

Need for a proper Portfolio management process
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PMI Process Model
Evaluation
Selection
Prioritisation
Portfolio Balancing
Authorisation
Identification
Categorisation
PortfolioManagement
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Annual portfolio planning

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Annual process
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Online survey
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile
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Approval Checklist
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile

• Approval Checklist (Go/No Go Criteria)
• Strategic Fit/Continuity of Service
• Technical Fit/Continuity of Service
• Positive Business Benefit
• Risk Evaluation (PR, HR, Polit)
• Negative Impact Evaluation
• Legal Compliance
• Completeness of Request

Decision
Approved
QualifiedRejection
Rejected
Please see notes for details
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Prioritisation
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile

• The fundamental objective of implementing
  Portfolio Management in the EP is to ensure that
  the institution can realise optimal value from
  its IT-enabled business investments at an
  affordable cost and with an acceptable level of
  risk.
• Prioritisation is then a key element of the
  process.

See next section
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Results example
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile
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Results example
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile
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Results example
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile
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Results example Risk profile
Survey
Explanation
Portfolio
Reconcile
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Benefits management
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Lessons learned from 2006 exercise

• The process used in 2006 to define the IT
  Development Plan for 2007 enabled the DGs to
  clearly formulate their requirements and the DIT
  to gain a better and broader understanding of
  business needs.
• However, it also revealed a significant gap
  between the DGs wishes and the DITs financial
  and human resources (the total requests received
  represented an amount of work more than 3 times
  bigger than the DITs capacity).
• This gap is likely to grow even bigger in the
  coming years, meaning that a number of valuable
  projects will compete for limited resources.
• The DIT therefore intends to strengthen the
  processes and mechanisms used for validating and
  prioritising IT development requests received,
  with a view to make sure that the right projects
  and the right mix of projects can be selected
  and given adequate priority and funding.

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Requests selection

• Strengthened selection and prioritisation
  approach based on the Val IT framework for the
  governance of IT investments.
• Multidimensional assessment of requests on the
  basis of five evaluation criteria
• Strategic alignment (contribution to the
  achievement of the Institutions strategic
  objectives)
• Opportunity (legal requirement, contribution to
  business continuity)
• Expected business benefits for the institution
• Risks induced by the requested developments
• Expected level of costs for the DIT.
• Scoring of requests against these five evaluation
  criteria on the basis of information provided by
  the DGs and the DIT in the IT Development Plan
  survey.

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Revised approach for 2007

• The assessment is differentiated according to the
  type of request
• Support non programming-related work requests
  (user support in some cases, or transversal
  methodological support)
• Maintenance requests related to management and
  programming work for performing fixes or minor
  enhancements to existing applications. Requests
  in this category can include corrective
  maintenance (changes necessitated by errors,
  defects or bugs in a system), adaptative
  maintenance (maintenance initiated as a result of
  changes in the environment in which a system
  operates), preventive maintenance (maintenance
  aimed at preventing problems before they occur),
  and perfective maintenance (enhancements to an
  application or a system made to meet evolving
  and/or expanding user needs).
• Enhancement/replacement replacement of existing
  system or application, upgrade to a new version
  or release, or enhancement of existing
  functionalities. The motivation for a replacement
  or enhancement work may be either
  business-related or technology-related, and in
  both cases it should be justified on the basis of
  clearly identified benefits.
• New developments development and/or
  implementation of new applications or information
  systems that are not designed to replace existing
  ones.

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Request scoring

• Request Scoring
• Scoring of requests against these five evaluation
  criteria on the basis of information provided by
  the DGs and the DIT in the IT Development Plan
  survey.

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Requests prioritisation

• Prioritisation of validated requests through the
  calculation of a relative overall weighted score
  for each request
• Strategic alignment score x weighting for type
  of investment
• Opportunity score x weighting for type of
  investment
• Benefits score x weighting for type of
  investment
• Risks score x weighting for type of
  investment
• Costs score x weighting for type of
  investment
• __________________________________________________
  
• Overall weighted score
• ? Establishment of a priority list

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Validation of requests

• Each request will be scored against the
  evaluation criteria using a four-point scale
• 0 points null or almost non-existent (e.g. no
  contribution to strategic objectives, no
  benefits, no risks, etc.)
• 1 point low
• 2 points moderate
• 3 points substantial
• 4 points high
• The scoring will be jointly performed by the
  requesting DGs and by the DIT.
• The score will help establish a 'profile' for
  each request.
• The request profiles will be used to compare the
  requests received between them as well as with a
  'typical' profile for each request type, and to
  validate or reject the requests.

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Proposed weighting scheme
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Portfolio analysis
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Next steps

• The 2007 improvements are a first step towards
  further improvement of the IT Portfolio
  Management process in the EP.
• Further work will follow in three complementary
  areas
• Active and continuous portfolio management
  development of tools and mechanisms to actively
  manage the portfolio on a continuous basis and to
  adjust the make-up of the portfolio depending on
  the relative performances of projects and
  programmes within the portfolio and to changes in
  the internal or external business environment of
  the EP.
• Life-cycle investment management development of
  adequate management tools and mechanisms to
  ensure appropriate ownership of project benefits,
  risks and costs, and to enforce accountability
  for driving out benefits, managing and mitigating
  risks, and controlling costs throughout project
  life cycle (e.g. business cases, benefits
  realisation plans, etc.)
• Value governance establishment of an adequate
  governance, monitoring and control framework,
  providing strategic direction for the investments
  and defining the investment portfolio
  characteristics (i.e. definition of a target
  portfolio in terms of types of investments, with
  a view to optimise the portfolios alignment with
  the institutions strategy and to better balance
  benefits and risks of IT projects).
• The objective is to move towards consistent and
  thorough governance and management mechanisms for
  the EPs IT investments, enabling the institution
  to realise optimal value from its IT-enabled
  business investments at an affordable cost and
  with an acceptable level of risk.

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

• Governance Alignment of IT developments to the
  Institution and to the IT department strategy is
  ensured.
• Effectiveness The right IT developments that
  consume the limited resources and capacities are
  selected (promising the highest return on
  investment).
• Efficiency Decision-making regarding IT
  development requests has been improved and
  accelerated by defining one standardised process
  and standardised approval criteria. Costs of not
  standardised and partly redundant processes,
  tools and activities have been reduced.
• Communication Customer relationship has been
  improved, by managing expectations in a
  standardised and coordinated way.

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• Thanks for your attention
• Ludovic Delepine European Parliament
• 352 43 00 1
• ludovic.delepine_at_europarl.europa.eu