Introduction
This guide sets out what you need to do to get started with the Application Rationalization Solution. It should be read in conjunction with the Application Rationalization Metamodel and the Application Rationalization Guide.
Application rationalization is the continuous process of assessing your organization's application portfolio and strategically deciding which applications can be kept, replaced, retired, or merged.
Pre-requisite Solutions
Ardoq Foundation (FND): The business outcome relies on a baseline of data from the Foundation solution (Applications, People, Business Capabilities). In addition to running a comprehensive rationalization exercise, two intimately connected Ardoq Solutions need to have been implemented:
Application Integration Management (AIM): Determines how difficult to replace an application is by capturing how applications talk to each other.
IT Cost Management (ITCM): Captures how much your applications cost.
Deploy the Solution
Once you have the pre-requisite data in place, select the Solution from the dropdown list on the Ardoq Solutions page and hit the Add solution materials button . This will deploy the Solution to your organization, including all preconfigured assets.
Step 1: Review your Application Portfolio
Before beginning your rationalization exercise, you must validate the baseline application data established in Ardoq Foundation. Application rationalization is most effective when your portfolio is comprehensive and accountability is clear.
Scope and Upload Data: Review the applications currently modeled in your repository. Ensure that all applications relevant to your rationalization goals are present. If any are missing, add them using the Excel Importer, ServiceNow integration, or Ardoq Surveys before proceeding.
Verify Accountability: Confirm that every application has both an Owner (to provide business value sentiment) and an Expert (to provide technical fit details).
Step 2: Capture Application Details
With your baseline portfolio built, you must reach out to the assigned Application Owners and Experts to fill in critical details regarding integration complexity, cost, and strategic value.
Capture Integrations (AIM): To assess structural complexity, map your interfaces. Use the Capture Application Interface Owners and Experts - AIM survey to document that an interface exists, and the Document Application Integration Mapping for Application Owners - AIM survey to document which client applications connect to it.
Capture Application Hosting (AH): Map your applications to their supporting infrastructure to understand technical dependencies and risks. Use the Document Application Hosting details - AH to capture This ensures transparency in your technology footprint and prepares the portfolio for modernization.
Capture Cost (ITCM): Send the Application cost and allocation - ITCM survey to Owners to capture CAPEX and OPEX . This rolls up into the application's Total Direct Cost.
Verify Completeness: Open the Application Rationalization Data Governance - AR dashboard to verify that your applications are loaded and to track any data discrepancies that exist preventing you from properly understanding your portfolio.
Step 3: Assess your Applications
Visualizing the Portfolio Applications are visualized using the TIME framework (Tolerate, Invest, Migrate, Eliminate) in the Bubble Chart view.
Tolerate: Low business value, high technical fit.
Invest: High business value, high technical fit.
Migrate: High business value, poor technical fit.
Eliminate: Low business value, poor technical fit.
Triaging Candidates
1. The Executive Dashboard (Visualizing Scale and ROI)
The Executive Dashboard - AR translates raw portfolio data into a high-level executive decision, focusing on the size of the opportunity and the financial return .
Tracking Application Sprawl: The Application - Strategic Rating pie chart and Strategic Rating Trend bar chart allow leaders to instantly see the health breakdown of the portfolio and verify if rationalization execution is stalling month over month.
Analyzing the Financial Indicators: While the Strategic Rating provides an automated recommendation based on your assessment criteria, the Financial Dashboard provides a fiscal perspective on those recommendations. These figures are not immediate ROI, but rather a clear indication of where potential savings or reinvestment opportunities exist:
Identifying Financial Potential: Use the Total Candidate Operational Cost widgets to view the potential financial impact of your rationalization decisions over a 1-year and 1–2 year "runway."
Translating Strategy into Finance: By applying the Strategic Rating filter, you can change the financial narrative of the dashboard. Filtering for "Eliminate" reveals potential OPEX savings that require further analysis to capture. Conversely, filtering for "Invest" highlights critical tools that, while high-value, may require increased budget to scale effectively before their next renewal.
Granular Review: The Overview of Candidates tables allow leaders to move from high-level indicators to specific applications (like Salesforce CRM or ERwin), providing the starting point for the deeper business-case analysis required to realize actual ROI.
Proving Success (Cost Progress): The Total Application Portfolio Operational Cost Progress section serves as the ultimate scorecard . By monitoring the Total Application Portfolio Operational Cost trendline alongside the Average Application Operational Cost, executives can prove that the overall IT spend is permanently lowering and becoming leaner over time as a direct result of the rationalization initiative.
2. The Builder Dashboard (Triaging and Risk Assessment)
While executives look at the high-level costs, Enterprise Architects (EAs) use the Application Rationalization - AR (dev) Builder dashboard to figure out exactly how to execute these cuts safely .
This dashboard uses the custom Rationalization Priority Report - AR. to calculate a Structural Complexity Score (combining total realized capabilities, integrations, and connected infrastructure) and checks for Capabilities at Risk (indicating an app is a single point of realization for a business capability) .
Prioritizing Work Streams: Before diving into raw tables, the EA uses the Rationalization Timelines pie charts to break down the upcoming workload by specific action track (Elimination, Investment, Migration) . These charts automatically categorize applications by their end-of-life dates.
Assessing Structural Risk: Before making rationalization decisions, EAs must assess structural dependencies. The dashboard's Risk widgets categorize apps by complexity rather than just cost:
Urgent / High Risk: Flags apps expiring under 1 year with Capabilities at Risk . Regardless of the strategic rating, this app is a single point of failure for a business capability. The table reveals the Application Owner and the organizational unit it is Consumed By, so the EA can immediately plan a safe transition before the contract expires
Quick Wins (Low Risk): Ranks applications expiring within 1 year that have 0 Capabilities at Risk by ascending structural complexity . EAs can easily scan this list to find low-complexity "Eliminate" or "Migrate" candidates and confidently retire or replace them.
Analyzing Capability Complexity: Rationalization isn't just about retiring single apps; it's about streamlining entire business functions. The Overview of Business Capabilities widgets help EAs spot systemic bloat. The Capabilities with the Most Realized Technology pie chart highlights which core capabilities are supported by an excessive number of applications (The business can decide what excessive means to them. Currency, the filter is set to 5 applications but can be changed if needed). To investigate why a single function like "Risk Management" requires 10 different tools, the EA uses the Capability Experts and Complexity table to find the exact subject matter experts to interview regarding the overlap.
Step 4: Plan and Execute
Impact Assessment & Execution Before pulling the plug on a target, use relationship views like the Dependency Map, Block Diagram and Timeline to verify its context and ensure untangling it won't break connected infrastructure or compromise any business function.
Using the Connected Org Unit and Capabilities - AR viewpoint. You can search the Applications deemed urgent candidates, and trace the realized capabilities to identify potential overlapping applications satisfying the same business function or how a capability at risk can be preserved. You can also understand the organizational unit that owns that application and the person who is an expert in it.
Using the Block Diagram view in the Connected Servers and Services - AR viewpoint, you can analyze the connected infrastructure of this rationalization candidate.
Build a rationalization roadmap using the Timeline view to detail when and how applications will be rationalized using conditional formatting for each strategic rating and their livecycle.
If you’re interested in working through the context of business capabilities, you can use the viewpoint Business Capabilities Realized by Applications - AR. When diving deeper into the Business Capabilities with the most realized technology, this view allows you to see a birds eye view of a context capability and all the applications realizing it. This way you can begin an assessment of which applications truly have overlapping functions with the selected capability. Using conditional formatting for each strategic rating to really stand out.