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Sunset…Do You Know When Prune the Application Tree?

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(This is the initial blog post from the MSCOM Operations and Portal Release Management team.)

When it comes to controlling costs, one of the best places to start is by managing your application portfolio.

Recently, the MSCOM Release Management team started looking at making improvements in Portfolio Management – not just the portfolio of applications being developed by the teams that we work with, but also the applications that are currently deployed in the MSCOM operational environment. What we found – a decentralized system, focusing on developing and deploying new applications – made us realize that a deeper look into the overall portfolio was needed.

Placing checkpoints onto adding applications to the Application Portfolio slows the growth of the portfolio, but does not stop it. In order to fully manage the Application Portfolio, another piece is needed -- Software Rotation (also known as "sustained engineering"). In the "Unified View of the MSCOM Application Universe," once an application has been deployed into production, and the development teams are no longer actively working on replacement versions, "ownership" of the application is assigned by the portfolio managers to the "Software Rotation" team, who are chartered with performing maintenance on applications that satisfy critical business needs, but which are not slated for additional feature work. If a feature request comes in for one of these applications, it is referred to the appropriate development team by the portfolio managers. The Software Rotation team also periodically reviews its suite of applications to identify candidates for retirement, and works with the steering committee to determine sunset dates.

Centralized application portfolio management provides many benefits to MSCOM teams and customers, including the ability to track costs, better consistency and cost reductions. Product development teams benefit too, because they are able to stay focused on delivering customer value through new applications and features. This allows the product development teams to focus on delivering value releases to customers, rather than being randomized by having to fix old applications. Adding value, after all, is what we’re all here to do.

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