Challenges in Application Management

Application Management (AM) is an IT domain that supports organizations by keeping their applications up and running, up to date and under control. AM consumes about a third of IT budgets. But what keeps AM people awake at night?

This white paper summarizes the results of workshops in which representatives of the AM community have expressed their views about the challenges that they are facing

Keeping up with the speed of business change
Dealing with the complexity of hybrid application landscapes
Communicating with the business
Management of application knowledge

Introduction Application Management – AM

This white paper provides insight into the results of workshops on how the challenges are being experienced in the application management (AM) domain. After each workshop the white paper is updated with the new insights.

AM Context

The workshop takes the perspective of the IT Service Provider and in particular the organization
that is responsible for maintaining and managing applications. This is typically called application
management, although maintenance is often provided by application development.

This domain can also be demarcated by listing the perspectives that are excluded:

• Supply of standard applications and other components.
• Development of new applications.
• Infrastructure management.
• Business Information Management.
• A familiar dilemma Good, cheap, fast – you can pick any two.
  We’re all faced with this dilemma from time to time. We really want everything at once but that’s not realistic – we have to prioritize. These three aspects are used to qualify and structure the outcomes of the session. Each challenge is analysed and, where possible, the problem area or areas is indicated.
  These qualifications can be found in the detailled report of the outcomes.

Summary AM

Speed of change – business organizations are faced with a major challenge of balancing their day- to-day business with the necessity to continuously react to change. Compared to the past, the speed of change seems to have increased considerably.  This is quite a challenge for both internal IT departments and external IT Service Providers. They aren’t able to react quick enough to satisfy business demands, resulting in frustration for all.

• Complexity of application landscapes – a combination of old, intertwined applications and new technologies make it difficult to effect change rapidly.
• Business maturity – the business also has difficulty expressing their requirements and making appropriate choices.
• Knowledge management – difficult to acquire and retain knowledge of the application and its use in order to react well and quickly.

AM Conclusions

• Keeping up with the speed of business change.
• Dealing with the complexity of hybrid application landscapes.
• Communicating with the business.
• Management of application knowledge.

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