I must admit that before my career landed squarely in the middle of the Service Catalog and Service Portfolio world, I was a bit confused by the definition and realistic application of Service Portfolio Management.
The concept of a "portfolio" was certainly easy enough for me to understand. But how ITIL v3 defined a service portfolio, how the analysts were defining it, and how it was put into practice by vendors in the industry was difficult for my feeble mind to grasp. And based on some of the things I've heard from customers, industry pontiffs, and vendors alike, I think the concept still has the capacity to be interpreted in many different ways, sometimes creating confusion in the marketplace.
ITIL v3 defines the service portfolio to be the group of services that includes all services in production, in retirement, and those that are currently being built or transitioned to production. In contrast, the Service Catalog is defined as the subset of having all services that are available now and all services that are in transition from the drawing board to user availability. So when pundits say "the portfolio IS the catalog", they are a little off and clarification should be sought. (See diagram below.)
And there can also be confusion with "PPM" applications - that is, Project and Portfolio Management solutions. While they could be a distant cousin to Service Portfolio Management, they are really about helping the Program Management Office assess, prioritize, and monitor IT projects as an aggregate. (story continued in part 2)
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