IT Project Portfolio Assessment criteria: development and validation of a reference model

Abstract

To get value from an IT project portfolio now and in the future, it is important to periodically assess the so-called health of the portfolio. If organizations attempt to assess the health of their portfolio, many do not use a proven set of assessment criteria. Moreover, recent literature lacks an overview of assessment criteria that have been validated in real life conditions. Therefore, this article attempts to provide a validated reference set of assessment criteria. In this study, first an initial list of potential assessment criteria was established based on literature. Secondly, the usefulness of these potential assessment criteria were validated in five case organizations. In this multiple case study, interviews were conducted with practitioners in the field of IT Project Portfolio Management to learn about their practical experience with the assessment criteria. During the in-depth interviews, experts were asked to assess the usefulness of the assessment criteria for monitoring the health of their IT Project Portfolio. We propose that this reference set can be used by organizations to assess the health of their IT Project Portfolio in a more confident manner.