IT portfolio management: a banker''s perspective on IT

so-called Clinger-Cohen Act, which compels government decisionmakers to adopt a portfolio approach to IT investments. The great advantage of this is that it forces these decisionmakers to take not only a short-term perspective, however tempting and understandable this may be, but also to develop an overall vision. Decisionmakers must look at whether the IT portfolio is balanced in terms of risk, technology, payback period, capital allocation, distribution, and so on. This portfolio approach is expected to cross the ocean to Europe, but as yet there are few handles that can be grasped to give the portfolio approach a more concrete form.