CIS-Application Portfolio Management Interview Questions

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Given Below are some top CIS-Application Portfolio Management Interview Questions. This would help the candidates get an idea about what types and patterns they should expect and prepare accordingly.

Can you explain the purpose of Application Portfolio Management and its benefits to organizations?

Application Portfolio Management (APM) is the process of managing an organization’s portfolio of applications and technology assets to ensure they align with business objectives, are properly supported, and are cost-effective. The purpose of APM is to help organizations optimize their investment in technology and ensure that technology assets are used in the most effective and efficient way to support business processes and goals.

The benefits of APM to organizations include:

1. Better Decision Making: APM provides organizations with a comprehensive view of their technology assets and the information required to make informed decisions about investments in technology and applications.
2. Improved Alignment with Business Objectives: APM helps organizations ensure that their technology assets align with business objectives, enabling them to better support business processes and goals.
3. Increased Cost Savings: APM helps organizations optimize their investment in technology and reduce costs by identifying underutilized or redundant applications, and by rationalizing the application portfolio to eliminate unnecessary costs.
4. Better Risk Management: APM helps organizations manage technology risks by ensuring that applications are properly supported and maintained, and that critical systems are protected against failures and outages.
5. Improved Compliance: APM helps organizations ensure that technology assets are used in compliance with industry regulations and standards, and that sensitive data is protected.
6. Better Resource Allocation: APM helps organizations allocate technology resources effectively by ensuring that applications and technology assets are used in the most efficient and cost-effective way to support business processes and goals.

In conclusion, the purpose of APM is to help organizations optimize their investment in technology and ensure that technology assets are used in the most effective and efficient way to support business processes and goals. By implementing APM, organizations can reduce costs, improve decision making, and better align their technology investments with business objectives.

How have you used Application Portfolio Management to analyze and optimize the IT application portfolio?

Application Portfolio Management (APM) involves several key steps to analyze and optimize the IT application portfolio:

1. Inventory: Gather a comprehensive inventory of all applications and technology assets, including information on the purpose, ownership, usage, and cost of each application.
2. Classification: Classify the applications and technology assets based on business criticality, usage, and other relevant criteria, to prioritize and focus optimization efforts.
3. Assessment: Assess the performance, cost, and alignment of each application with business objectives to identify opportunities for optimization and improvement.
4. Rationalization: Rationalize the application portfolio by eliminating underutilized or redundant applications, consolidating applications where possible, and retiring outdated or unsupported applications.
5. Optimization: Optimize the application portfolio by improving performance, reducing costs, and ensuring that applications align with business objectives. This may involve consolidating systems, modernizing applications, or outsourcing non-core applications.
6. Monitoring and Review: Continuously monitor and review the application portfolio to ensure that applications are properly supported and aligned with business objectives, and that new opportunities for optimization are identified and acted upon.

APM can be supported by tools such as SAP Solution Manager, which provides a centralized repository for application and technology information, as well as performance monitoring and reporting capabilities. By using APM and tools like SAP Solution Manager, organizations can gain a comprehensive view of their application portfolio, and implement effective strategies to optimize the portfolio and support business processes and goals.

Can you discuss your experience with identifying and rationalizing redundant or underutilized applications?

The process of identifying redundant or underutilized applications typically involves the following steps:

1. Inventory: Gather a comprehensive inventory of all applications and technology assets, including information on the purpose, usage, and cost of each application.
2. Usage Analysis: Analyze the usage patterns of each application to identify underutilized or rarely used applications.
3. Cost Analysis: Analyze the cost of each application, including direct and indirect costs such as licensing, maintenance, and support, to identify applications that are expensive to maintain or support.
4. Duplication Analysis: Analyze the functionality of each application to identify duplicated or redundant functionality, which can indicate opportunities to consolidate or eliminate applications.
5. Business Alignment Analysis: Analyze the alignment of each application with business objectives and processes to identify applications that are no longer necessary or aligned with the organization’s goals.

Once redundant or underutilized applications have been identified, the next step is to rationalize the application portfolio by eliminating or consolidating these applications. This can involve retiring outdated or unsupported applications, consolidating systems to reduce costs, or outsourcing non-core applications to reduce support and maintenance costs.

The key benefits of rationalizing the application portfolio include reduced costs, improved performance, and increased alignment with business objectives. By eliminating redundant or underutilized applications, organizations can reduce the number of systems that need to be supported and maintained, freeing up resources for more strategic initiatives.

How have you used Application Portfolio Management to support decision-making for application investments and retirements?

The key steps in using APM for decision-making for application investments and retirements are:

1. Inventory: Gather a comprehensive inventory of all applications and technology assets, including information on the purpose, usage, and cost of each application.
2. Assessment: Assess the performance, cost, and alignment of each application with business objectives to identify opportunities for optimization and improvement.
3. Investment Analysis: Analyze the costs and benefits of each application, including the costs of maintaining and supporting the application, as well as the benefits to the business.
4. Retirement Analysis: Analyze the costs and benefits of retiring an application, including the costs of retiring the application, as well as the benefits of retiring the application, such as reduced support and maintenance costs.
5. Decision-Making: Based on the results of the investment and retirement analysis, make decisions on whether to invest in, retire, or rationalize the application portfolio. This can involve retiring outdated or unsupported applications, consolidating systems to reduce costs, or outsourcing non-core applications to reduce support and maintenance costs.

By using APM to support decision-making for application investments and retirements, organizations can make informed decisions on how to allocate resources and manage the application portfolio, balancing the costs and benefits of each application. This can lead to more efficient use of resources, improved performance, and increased alignment with business objectives.

Can you walk us through a recent project you worked on that involved Application Portfolio Management?

1. Objectives: The project objectives could include reducing the number of applications in the portfolio, reducing the costs of maintaining and supporting the portfolio, and improving alignment with business objectives.
2. Inventory: The first step in the project would be to gather a comprehensive inventory of all applications and technology assets, including information on the purpose, usage, and cost of each application.
3. Assessment: Next, the performance, cost, and alignment of each application with business objectives would be assessed to identify opportunities for optimization and improvement.
4. Investment Analysis: The costs and benefits of each application would then be analyzed, including the costs of maintaining and supporting the application, as well as the benefits to the business.
5. Retirement Analysis: The costs and benefits of retiring an application would also be analyzed, including the costs of retiring the application, as well as the benefits of retiring the application, such as reduced support and maintenance costs.
6. Recommendations: Based on the results of the investment and retirement analysis, recommendations would be made on whether to invest in, retire, or rationalize the application portfolio.
7. Implementation: The recommendations would then be implement, which could involve retiring outdated or unsupported applications, consolidating systems to reduce costs, or outsourcing non-core applications to reduce support and maintenance costs.

This is just one example of how a project involving Application Portfolio Management might be executed. The specifics of the project would depend on the organization’s specific needs and objectives.

How have you used Application Portfolio Management to support alignment of IT with business goals and strategies?

Application Portfolio Management (APM) can support the alignment of IT with business goals and strategies by:

1. Understanding business needs: APM helps organizations understand the needs of the business and how IT can support these needs by gathering information about the business processes and applications used to support them.
2. Aligning IT with business strategy: APM helps organizations align IT with business strategy by providing a framework for assessing the value of each application and its alignment with business objectives.
3. Optimizing the IT portfolio: APM helps organizations optimize the IT portfolio by identifying opportunities to retire or consolidate redundant or underutilized applications, and to invest in new applications that support business needs.
4. Measuring success: APM helps organizations measure success by providing metrics for measuring the alignment of the IT portfolio with business goals and strategies, and for tracking the results of investments in IT.
5. Improving communication: APM helps improve communication between IT and the business by providing a common language and framework for discussing the IT portfolio and how it supports business objectives.

By using APM to align IT with business goals and strategies, organizations can improve the alignment of IT with the needs of the business, optimize the IT portfolio, and ensure that IT investments are align with business objectives.

Can you discuss your experience with integrating Application Portfolio Management with other IT management processes, such as project portfolio management and service management?

Application Portfolio Management (APM) can be integrate with other IT management processes:

1. Project Portfolio Management: APM can be integrated with project portfolio management by using project information to identify the applications that will be needed to support new projects, and by using project information to assess the alignment of new projects with business goals and strategies.
2. Service Management: APM can be integrated with service management by using service management information to assess the cost and value of each application, and by using service management information to identify opportunities for optimizing the IT portfolio and aligning IT with business objectives.
3. IT Financial Management: APM can be integrated with IT financial management by using IT financial management information to assess the cost and value of each application, and by using IT financial management information to identify opportunities for optimizing the IT portfolio and aligning IT with business objectives.
4. IT Performance Management: APM can be integrated with IT performance management by using IT performance information to assess the performance of each application and identify opportunities for improvement, and by using IT performance information to assess the alignment of the IT portfolio with business goals and strategies.

Integrating APM with other IT management processes can help organizations improve the alignment of IT with business goals and strategies, optimize the IT portfolio, and ensure that IT investments are aligned with business objectives.

How have you used Application Portfolio Management to manage risks associated with application portfolios, such as security, compliance and vendor management?

Application Portfolio Management (APM) can help manage risks associated with application portfolios by:

1. Identifying risks: APM helps organizations identify risks associated with each application, such as security, compliance, and vendor management, by gathering information about each application and the associated risks.
2. Assessing risk impact: APM helps organizations assess the impact of each risk by using metrics to measure the cost and value of each application and its alignment with business goals and strategies.
3. Managing risks: APM helps organizations manage risks by providing a framework for prioritizing risk mitigation efforts and for tracking the results of risk mitigation efforts.
4. Improving security: APM helps improve security by providing information about the security of each application, and by identifying opportunities for improving security through investment in new applications or by retiring or consolidating underutilized applications.
5. Ensuring compliance: APM helps ensure compliance by providing information about the compliance status of each application and by identifying opportunities for improving compliance through investment in new applications or by retiring or consolidating underutilized applications.
6. Managing vendors: APM helps manage vendors by providing information about the vendor landscape and by identifying opportunities for optimizing the vendor portfolio and reducing vendor risk.

By using APM to manage risks associated with application portfolios, organizations can reduce the risks associated with their application portfolios, improve the security and compliance of their IT systems, and ensure that IT investments are aligned with business objectives.

Can you describe your experience with leading and managing Application Portfolio Management initiatives and teams?

1. Vision and strategy: The leader of an APM initiative should have a clear vision and strategy for optimizing the application portfolio and aligning it with business goals and strategies.
2. Stakeholder engagement: The leader of an APM initiative should be able to engage stakeholders, including business and IT leaders, to gather requirements, build consensus, and ensure that the APM initiative is align with business goals and strategies.
3. Team leadership: The leader of an APM initiative should be able to lead and manage a team of APM specialists, including subject matter experts, data analysts, and project managers.
4. Process improvement: The leader of an APM initiative should have experience with process improvement and should be able to identify opportunities for improving the APM process and implementing best practices.
5. Data analysis: The leader of an APM initiative should have strong data analysis skills and should be able to use data to inform decision-making and to measure the success of the APM initiative.
6. Communication and presentation skills: The leader of an APM initiative should have strong communication and presentation skills and should be able to present complex information in a clear and concise manner to a variety of stakeholders.

By leading and managing an APM initiative effectively, the leader can ensure that the initiative is align with business goals and strategies, that risks are managed effectively, and that the IT application portfolio is optimize to deliver value to the organization.

How do you stay current with the latest trends and best practices in Application Portfolio Management?

Staying current with the latest trends and best practices in Application Portfolio Management (APM) requires continuous learning and professional development. Some ways to stay current include:

1. Attending conferences and events: Attend conferences and events focused on APM to learn about the latest trends and best practices, network with other professionals, and stay up-to-date on the latest technologies and tools.
2. Reading industry publications: Read industry publications, such as journals, blogs, and online forums, to stay informed about the latest trends and best practices in APM.
3. Participating in online communities: Join online communities, such as LinkedIn groups, discussion forums, and webinars, to network with other professionals and exchange ideas and best practices.
4. Continuous learning: Participate in training programs, workshops, and online courses to continuously develop your knowledge and skills in APM.
5. Staying in touch with vendors: Stay in touch with APM vendors and suppliers to learn about the latest trends and best practices, and to understand how new technologies and tools can be applied to your APM initiatives.

By continuously learning and staying current with the latest trends and best practices, you can ensure that your APM initiatives are aligned with the latest thinking and that you are able to deliver maximum value to your organization.

1. Define Application Portfolio Management portal?

The Application Portfolio Management site provides an overview of the number of apps and other critical indicators throughout the whole company. This portal allows you to browse and access all APM modules as an enterprise architect (EA). There are four components to the Application Portfolio Management site. The sections allow you to quickly explore portfolios of business capacity, information, application, and technology, as well as set objectives, needs, and initiatives.

2. What is Technology Portfolio?

You can view the number of hardware models and software models that link to your business applications in the Technology Portfolio. You can also get a count of the number of these models that are at high risk.

3. What modules are available in Table Administration?

• Tables module: Provides a list of all tables in the database.
• Tables & Columns module: Provides a list of all existing tables, with columns, column attributes, and indexes.
• Schema map: Provides a graphical representation of the relationships between tables.
• Data dictionary tables: Contains additional information that defines database elements.

4. What is a Table?

A table is a collection of records present in a database. Each field on a record corresponds to a column in that table, and each record corresponds to a row in that table.

5. What is Domain Separation?

 Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. 

6. Define NTLM authentication?

NTLM is the most complicated of the authentication protocols that a simple web server like HttpClient can implement. It’s a Microsoft-develop proprietary protocol with no publicly published specifications. For NTLM authentication, an instance of NTCredentials must be present for the server’s domain name or default credentials. Because NTLM does not employ the concept of realms, HttpClient uses the server’s domain name as the realm name.

7. What is Common Service Data Model?

The Common Service Data Model (CSDM) is a collection of words and concepts that spans all ServiceNow® products on the Now Platform® and may utilize with them. Within the ServiceNow® Configuration Management Database, the CSDM keywords and definitions enable service reporting and give prescriptive standards for service modeling (CMDB).

8. What are the benefits of using CSDM?

You may utilize the CSDM to map your IT services to the ServiceNow platform as a blueprint. The CSDM is a CMDB-type architecture that determines where data for your goods should store. In addition, any ServiceNow products that use the CMDB must use the CSDM. Following the CSDM framework guarantees that the data require by your ServiceNow application is accurately map to the appropriate CMDB tables.

9. What are the components of CSDM?

Most of the CSDM follows the CMDB data model, which includes the following components:

• Business capability
• Business application
• Information object
• Application service
• Service
• Service offering

10. What is a request Catalog?

A Request Catalog is a list of business and technical products, services, service commitment options, and offerings that you can.

11. What are Catalog Items?

A catalog item is something you may order from the catalog, such as a product or a service. Multiple catalog items can be found in a single service. Items from the catalog list on the service portal are available to users that require them. Each catalog entry refers to a certain service.

12. What are Certification Tasks?

The job of confirming the data connect with a certain record is refer to as a certification task. Task owners are in charge of completing certification tasks. Tasks have a process connected with them that sends periodic reminders to the task owner and, if required, the task owner’s manager.

13. What are the KPIs of the Incident Management Process?

The number of times an incident is transmitted to various teams is one of the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of the Incident Management process. It also aids in the analysis of events based on the classification in order to perform proactive Problem Management, which in turn aids in the reduction of occurrences. It is critical to classify incidents correctly in order to identify and prioritize which incidents should address first.

14. What are the various goals of Asset management?

Asset management business practices have a common set of goals.

• Control inventory that is purchase and use.
• Reduce the cost of purchasing and managing assets.
• Select the proper tools for managing assets.
• Manage the asset life cycle from planning to disposal.
• Achieve compliance with relevant standards and regulations.
• Improve IT service to end users.
• Create standards and processes for managing assets.

15. How many Traits does Consumables Contains?

Consumables have 3 Traits

• Same location
• Same state
• Consumed by the same asset, typically as accessories or parts

16. What are the various stages in the consumable lifecycle?

The consumable lifecycle stages are as follows.

• On order
• In stock
• In transit
• Consumed
• In maintenance
• Retired
• Missing

17. What is the role of Benchmark Applications?

The ServiceNow® Benchmarks application gives you instant visibility into your key performance indicators (KPIs) and trends, as well as comparative insight relative to industry averages of your peers. You can contrast the performance of your organization with recognized industry standards, view a side-by-side comparison of performance with global benchmarks, and implement recommendations for improved performance.

18. Explain CIM Application?

ServiceNow® Continual Improvement Management (CIM) application is use to request improvement opportunities, and implement phases and tasks to meet performance goals, track progress, and measure success.An improvement initiative consists of:

• Goals to measure success
• Phases to organize work effort
• Tasks with specific actions to complete

19. What are Expense Lines?

Expense lines enable you to track costs and represent when a point-in-time expense is incur. Expense lines can be manually enter or produce automatically when recurring charges are process. They work well with asset management, CMDB, cost management, and contract management, but they may also be utilise with other applications.

20. What is the Usage of Incident Communications Management?

Usage of Incident Communications Management

• Create an incident communication plan when a crisis occurs.
• Set up contact responsibilities to identify the individuals who receive automatic notifications when incident communication plans are create.
• Manage incident communication plans to improve communication while dealing with the crisis.
• Use the optional Notify feature to send notifications by SMS messages and voice mails, and to set up conference calls.
• Monitor events and results with the incident communication plan dashboard and reports.

21. What are Applications Services?

An application service is a set of interconnected applications and hosts which are configure to offer a service to the organization. Application services can be internal, like an organization’s email system or customer-facing, like an organization’s website. Application services can be internal, like an organization email system or customer-facing, like an organization website

22. How does Service Mapping Works?

Service Mapping discovers application services and automatically populates application services with discovered application and host CIs. If Service Mapping is enable, an application service can include both manually add CIs and CIs found by Service Mapping. It also develops and updates application services in the CMDB by talking with individual CIs and finding links between them, as well as storing information about identified CIs and relationships.

23. What are the beenfits of Addressing Knowledge Gaps?

Knowledge gaps has the following benefits:

• Improve effectiveness of self-service: Self-service users get more relevant information for research, troubleshooting, and how to queries.
• Increase case or incident resolutions: Having relevant information available helps you deflect future cases.
• Improved case resolution: Agents can find more relevant knowledge articles to solve cases, incidents, problems, and so on.

24. What is MID Server?

The Management, Instrumentation, and Discovery (MID) Server is a Java application that runs as a Windows service or UNIX daemon on a server in your local network. The MID Server enables communication and the movement of data between a ServiceNow instance and external applications, data sources, and services.

25. What are the categories of every circle in Completion Indidcator?

• Empty circle: The task is not begin.
• Circle with a lock: Feature is not activate. You can look at the setup tasks, but not perform them.
• Partial blue border: The percentage of tasks that are complete.
• Circle with curved arrow: Activity tasks were skip.
• Green circle with check mark: Activity tasks are complete.

26. What do you mean by Business Capability?

Business capacity refers to an organization’s ability to successfully do business and achieve its objectives. The business capability mapping is use to create a CI link between a business capability and its associated business applications.

27. What is the Demand Management Application?

The Demand Management application consists of tools for capturing, centralizing, and assessing strategic and operational demands. It also provides a single location for managing all the demand information.

28. What activities can you perform with PPM?

• Determine overall cost requirements for all demands and projects in portfolios
• Establish resource requirements and track costs for demands and projects
• Track actual amounts spent compared to an approved budget

29. Why should we use Rate Models?

You use a rate model to derive date-effective, criteria-driven hourly rates for calculating planned and actual resource costs for a project or demand. Using a rate model enables you to define different rates of a specific resource, group, or role for different periods.

30. What are Rtae Lines?

A rate model is made up of several rate lines. For a certain date range, a rate line is a unique combination of distinct criterion values that specifies the hourly rate for a resource, group, or job. If the dates do not overlap, you can build numerous rate lines for the same set of criteria with different rates for separate period spans.

31. What all can you do with Investment Funding Features?

You can use the Investment Funding features to do the following:

• Create investments for entities.
• Allocate funds to an investment to meet a business requirement or strategic objective.
• Request funds from one or more funding sources to achieve business goals.

32. What are the advantages of Keeping the investment and investment entity separate ?

Keeping the investment and investment entity separate provides the following advantages:

• Your work activities are separate from the funding.
• You can fund the same entity for different periods until the investment goals are met.

33. Define Cost Models?

A cost model is a collection of rules, techniques, and measurements that advise the application how to distribute spending among the hierarchy’s accounts. They link to reports and allocations.

34. What are the benefits of Predictive Intelligence for Demand Management?

Predictive Intelligence for Demand Management has the following benefits:

• Improves the quality of your database by avoiding duplicate demand.
• Helps you in planning your demand. You can view details of similar demands that were submit and execute in the past.

35. What is Information Portfolio?

It captures the information from the assets of your organization as information objects. You can connect the information object to your business applications to have a portfolio of application information, ready and accessible to use at any time. The entities in the information portfolio are either configuration items or columns of tables. They can relate to each other either by CMDB CI relationship or by referencing the data columns of tables.

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