See also "Valuing knowledge services" roundtable, June 13, The Mitre Corporation

April, 2006

Management practices often migrate from one industry or corporate function to another. One of the latest to make this trip is "service portfolio management" (SPM), a methodology borrowed from the mutual fund industry in which managers try to "balance" a group of investments to maximize the benefits desired by fund customers and minimize their risk. When applied to information services, SPM has three key characteristics. First, it's focused on the whole spectrum of user services, not individual resources or technology projects. Second, it requires managers to categorize IT spending based on strategic importance and risk/return profile. Third, it uses a consensus form of decision-making to create a balance between ongoing, "bread-and-butter" activities and innovative, high risk/high return projects.

Like knowledge base publishing, SPM is an interdisciplinary, systems-oriented approach that has its roots in the technologies of service-oriented architecture, matrix forms of product management, and the analytical techniques of the investment industry. Information professionals may find that it brings changes in the organization chart, new job descriptions, a different relationship with business units, and a new definition of success.

In this article we describe service portfolio management — how it works, its benefits, and its implications for knowledge services.

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Created on May 2, 2006 l Updated on May 5, 2006