IT Project Portfolio Risks: development and validation of a reference model

IT project portfolio management has been implemented in most organizations to effectively manage and balance complex portfolios of IT projects with business strategy. Portfolio risks can affect the success of a portfolio and the achievement of its strategic intentions. While recent literature identifies potential risks in sub-areas of ITPPM, a validated comprehensive list of risk factors and an understanding of why these factors are perceived as risks by practitioners is lacking. Therefore, this study designs and then validates a reference set of risks based on practitioners’ experiences with these risks. Our validated reference set of risk factors can be used by organizations to more confidently assess the risks of their IT project portfolio.