Manage the IT Investment

A framework is established and maintained to manage IT-enabled investment programs and that encompasses cost, benefits, prioritization within budget, a formal budgeting process and management against the budget. Stakeholders are consulted to identify and control the total costs and benefits within the context of the IT strategic and tactical plans, and initiate corrective action where needed. The process fosters partnership between IT and business stakeholders; enables the effective and efficient use of IT resources; and provides transparency and accountability into the total cost of ownership (TCO), the realization of business benefits and the ROI of IT-enabled investments.

Financial Management Framework

Establish and maintain a financial framework to manage the investment and cost of IT assets and services through portfolios of IT- enabled investments, business cases and IT budgets.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs.

Prioritization Within IT Budget

Implement a decision-making process to prioritize the allocation of IT resources for operations, projects and maintenance to maximize IT’s contribution to optimizing the return on the enterprise’s portfolio of IT-enabled investments.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs.

IT Budgeting

Establish and implement practices to prepare a budget reflecting the priorities established by the enterprise’s portfolio of IT-enabled investments, and including the ongoing costs of operating and maintaining the current infrastructure. The practices should support development of an overall IT budget as well as development of budgets for individual IT services. The practices should allow for ongoing review, refinement and approval of the overall budget and the budgets for individual IT services.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs.

Cost Management

Implement a cost management process comparing actual costs to budgets. Costs should be monitored and reported. Where there are deviations, these should be identified in a timely manner and the impact of those deviations should be assessed. Together with the business sponsor of those costed services, appropriate remedial action should be taken and, if necessary, the service business case should be updated.

There are no PSGs published for this topic; however, the topic is under review for future PSGs.

Benefit Management

Implement a process to monitor the benefits from providing and maintaining appropriate IT capabilities. IT’s contribution to the business, either as a component of IT-enabled investments or as part of regular operational support, should be identified and documented in a business case, agreed to, monitored and reported. Reports should be reviewed and, where there are opportunities to improve IT’s contribution, appropriate actions should be defined and taken. Where changes in IT’s contribution impact the service or where changes to other related projects impact the service, the service business case should be updated.