Branching Out

Although most federal agencies use portfolio management tools to manage IT assets, visionaries who see greater potential in the technology are branching out.

The Homeland Security Department's Science and Technology Directorate, which is responsible for research and development, is testing the portfolio management tool ProSight to winnow out potential projects and products slated for development.

Analysts use portfolio management to eliminate options based on risk and assigned threat, which helps them to decide which products they do want to develop.

"Take first-generation biodetectors. If we have four different technologies being proposed to go to second generation, how do we evaluate them against what we are trying to solve in the next generation?" asks Marc Hollander, the directorate's deputy assistant for plans, programs and budget.

But even more important is the ability of a portfolio management tool to provide a "what-if" analysis. "We need to be able to assess valued judgment against various criteria," he says. For example, the tool measures potential DHS products against threats to homeland security. Hollander's team is ad-vised which product would have the highest value toward reducing a given threat.