Using Analytical Hierarchical Process to Match IT Portfolio Management Processes to Strategy Maps

Information technology (IT) represents a significant portion of capital expenditures for a firm. With the current financial crisis, it has become increasingly important to ensure that IT investment decisions are aligned with corporate strategy. Strategy maps use a balanced-scorecard approach to help companies formulate their strategy. This paper presents a new technique that uses the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to elicit the decision making structure underlying IT portfolio management processes in a company. Different prototypical strategy maps are then evaluated against this structure to determine alignment between the current portfolio management processes and the company's strategy. A case study from a university is used to illustrate the technique.