This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

The fundamental principle of portfolio management is that you first choose the goals for your portfolio and then select the investments that will achieve them. For investments in change, these goals are expressed as the results you want to accomplish (with corresponding measures and milestones) and the shape of the enterprise that the investments must deliver.

Portfolio management is poised to go "retro." As organizations are preparing to come out of the recession, they are thinking more broadly about the types of investments that will be required to support business growth. As a result, some organizations are revisiting the idea of portfolio management as a way to organize and evaluate.

The Standish Group's "CHAOS Summary 2009" report shows a marked decrease in IT project success rates, with 32 per cent of all projects succeeding. It's one thing to know that 68 per cent of all IT projects don't succeed. But it's another to look across your company and realise you have no way of knowing which of your projects might be in the 68 per cent bucket and which have the potential to be in the 32 per cent bucket.

A local council's application development group uses project portfolio management (PPM) software to justify each and every developer to the budget office when the bean counters are looking to cut programmers.