Using the Tragedy of Commons theory for application portfolio guidance

Many times, business and application leaders bring their rationalization efforts as far as a plan, but stumble getting the business engaged to execute the plan. They question the reasons for spending money on an IT problem and do not understand how they contribute to the problem, so nothing happens. 

Many design principles laid out by Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrum can provide a useful analog for business and application leaders in addressing the application portfolio problem. Some of them are discussed here clearly define boundaries

• According to the observations of Elinor Ostrum, individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the common pool resource must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the common pool resource itself. If there are no boundaries to define the resource or the entities that can use the resource, no one knows what is being managed. Business and application leaders should have following things in mind: They should be very specific about the capacity of the application organization for support, maintenance, and integration work.
• The distribution of resource to each business unit should be specified.
• Transparency about the consumption of a resource and the impact of a new demand should be maintained.

Coming together of appropriation and provision rules and local conditions

Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material and/or money. The rules established must be tailored to the unique circumstance of each common pool resource, and reflect the specific attributes of that resource. Business leaders should leverage governance mechanisms as these mechanisms have already been developed for local conditions. But this should not be made about more governance. They should also consider the unique aspects of their organization and broader strategic or policy posture and define rules that relate to the local conditions.Collective-choice Arrangements

Most individuals who are affected by operational rules should be able to participate in modification and rectification of those rules. When those subject to the rules participate in rule definition and modification, the rules continue to be tailored to local conditions. The business and application leaders should ensure a clear understanding of the common challenge and collaboratively develop rules governing use of the common resource. They should also establish a forum which is easy to access, where those subjects to the rules feel liberty to raise issues which support rule change.Monitoring

Business units which use common pool resources should be the ones to monitor rule compliance and establish sanctions for rule violators. As long as participants believe an objective is being met, and others are following the rules (contingent commitment) to achieve those objectives, then rules will be followed. Business and application leaders should continually reinforce that the objective being sought is to preserve the vitality of the common pool resource over the long term and that it continues to remain a healthy enterprise resource serving enterprise needs. They should publicly communicate their support of established rules, their commitment to monitoring, as well as their support of sanctions against rule violators. In other words, continue to support the constitution. An enterprise mechanism should be established, dedicated to monitoring the rules, and tracking performance of the common pool resource that is transparent to all participants. In that way, the mechanism serves the purpose of reinforcing contingent commitment. These recommendations are laid out with the common goal of establishing a minimally effective point of cooperation in between the different blocks in the game. They can help in establishing the rules around that cooperation, and help in monitor the results.