Application Portfolio Assessment · Free · 12 questions

How many applications do you own — and how many own you?

Most organizations run far more applications than anyone can name, pay for tools nobody uses, and keep systems alive because retiring them is nobody's job. Score your portfolio on the five disciplines that separate an estate from an accumulation: inventory, cost visibility, redundancy, lifecycle, and retirement.

Takes about 4 minutes. Answer honestly — the score is only useful if it's true.

The assessment

Rate each statement as it is today — not where you plan to be.

0 of 12 answered

1. We have a complete, current inventory of every application in production — including the ones the business bought without IT.
2. Every application maps to the business capability it serves — and we can see where multiple applications serve the same one.
3. We know what each application costs to run per year — licenses, infrastructure, and support included.
4. We know who actually uses each application, and how much — from usage data, not anecdote.
5. Every application has a lifecycle disposition — invest, maintain, tolerate, or retire — reviewed at least annually.
6. Applications actually get retired — decommissioning happens on a schedule, not "someday."
7. Redundant applications get consolidated — we don't run three tools that do the same job because merging is awkward.
8. Every application has a named business owner accountable for its cost and its future — not just an IT contact.
9. New application purchases pass through a portfolio check first — we don't buy what we already own.
10. Our most business-critical applications are also our healthiest — investment follows importance, not history.
11. Contracts and renewals are visible ahead of time — no auto-renewal surprises for tools nobody uses.
12. The portfolio has a target state — we can say which applications will exist in three years, and why.