“Which applications should we keep, invest in, migrate or retire?”
The whole method, end to end: an inventory with business and technical fit, every application placed on Gartner’s TIME model, a migration path from the 7 Rs for every move, and total cost of ownership read from the books. Dotwork keeps the decision on the same model as the contracts, the dependencies, the portfolio and the budget, so Eliminate becomes a funded decommission and the saving is tracked until it leaves a budget. Score on your own criteria, use your own labels and run it in waves.
The pressure
Rationalization starts with a spreadsheet of every application, a scoring workshop and a list of what to retire. Then it stalls. The cost behind each app was estimated, not booked. Nobody checked what depends on it or when its contract renews. The decommission was never funded, and the saving was counted in the business case but never taken out of a budget.
What it looks like today
Full coverage
No step lives in a scoring spreadsheet. Inventory, assessment, dispositions, migration paths and follow-through all sit beside the cost, contracts and portfolio they affect.
Built for Gartner TIME and the 7 Rs of migration
Know what you run.
Score it, and keep the score honest.
Gartner’s four answers, each with a next step.
A path for every move, priced.
What each application really costs to keep.
Where rationalization usually stalls.
What changes
A one-time scoring exercise
Fit kept current, with an as-of date and an assessor on every score
Cost estimated per application
Every application carrying its booked cost from the ledger
A retirement list
Every disposition planned, funded and tracked to decommission
Savings in the business case
Savings proven, then taken out of a budget
TIME, with the money on every dot
Every application placed by business and technical fit and sized by what it really costs. Where the recorded investment objective disagrees with where the scores put it, the disagreement is the finding. Each dot carries its contract notice date, what depends on it and the initiative — if any — that will act on it, so Eliminate means a funded plan, not a label.
Where other tools stop
APM tools score the portfolio. Finance holds the cost. Procurement holds the contracts. The decision only sticks when all three sit on the same dot.
Flexed to how you run
There is no single right way to rationalize. Dotwork follows the established methods where they help and lets you shape the rest without losing what makes the results comparable.
Your scoring model
Score fit on your own criteria and scales. The quadrant reads from whatever you set, and each score keeps the criteria it was made under.
Your dispositions
Use TIME and the 7 Rs, the older 5 or 6 Rs, or your own labels — Modernize, Consolidate, Sunset — mapped to the standard underneath.
Waves, not a big bang
Rationalize one capability, business unit or domain at a time, with each wave priced and sequenced against the budget it frees.
After an acquisition
Assess an acquired estate on the same model — fit, cost, end-of-life exposure and overlap with what you already run.
When the method moves
Application rationalization has no official version, but its methods evolve: Gartner’s 5 Rs became AWS’s 6, then 7, and many teams rename TIME’s quadrants. Dotwork holds the method as reference data, so a new path or label is a change you approve — and every past decision keeps the method it was made under.
Relocate added for moving whole hosting environments without changing the applications
Added as a migration path; moves already planned keep theirs
Older programs still use Gartner’s 5 Rs — rehost, refactor, revise, rebuild, replace
Mapped to the 7 Rs, with the original label kept on each decision
Migrate renamed Modernize in many programs
Shown as Modernize wherever it appears; past decisions unchanged
Fit criteria reweighted between assessment cycles
Earlier scores keep the criteria they were made under; new ones use the new weights
Every framework, one model
A rationalization decision touches finance, procurement, architecture and the cloud bill. Make it once and each of those views shows it.
IT spend taxonomy
Every application’s cost comes from the same allocation TBM reports.
Explore TBMISO/IEC 19770 · licenses, contracts and renewals
Each disposition shows the entitlements and renewals riding on it.
Explore IT Asset ManagementADM · TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition
Migrate and eliminate become gaps between the baseline and target architectures.
Explore TOGAFCapability and process maps
Applications per capability show duplication and what a retirement would leave uncovered.
Explore BIZBOK & APQCStandards and review for every architecture component
Conformance to standards feeds technical fit, and off-standard apps carry their waiver.
Explore Solution GovernanceCloud accountability and billing data
After a rehost or replatform, the cloud bill lands on the same application.
Explore FinOps & FOCUSAI-native rationalization
The work that stalls most rationalization programs — re-scoring, chasing owners, checking contracts and dependencies, proving the saving — runs on its own schedule. Every finding goes to the owner who decides, and every change is logged.
Reads each application’s cost from the reconciled ledger, so every dot on the grid is sized by real spend.
Flags applications never assessed, assessments past their freshness date and objectives that disagree with the scores.
Compares each application’s spend with its disposition and flags Tolerate and Eliminate apps whose spend is still growing.
Counts applications per capability and surfaces near-duplicate apps and products, ranked by the cost involved.
Watches notice dates on contracts behind applications marked Migrate or Eliminate, so nothing auto-renews by default.
Walks from an application through its interfaces and data to everything that depends on it.
Prices each wave against the baseline: run-rate released by retiring apps and arriving with their replacements.
Moves each saving from first signal through validation to budget removal, and nudges owners when a proven saving is still in their budget.
Where it runs in Dotwork
Dotwork does not ask you to adopt a new method. The framework becomes a view over the same model these solutions already read and write.
How it compares
Application portfolio management tools score and place the estate. Spreadsheets and workshops fill in the cost. App Rationalization on Dotwork runs the method end to end and carries each decision through to a funded decommission and a banked saving.
| Capability | APM tools | Spreadsheets & workshops | App Rationalization on Dotwork |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory with business and technical fit | Partly | ||
| TIME placement for every application | Partly | ||
| A migration path from the 7 Rs on every move | Partly | Partly | |
| Dependencies checked before retirement | |||
| Every application with its booked cost | Partly | ||
| Stale assessments flagged as unknown | Partly | ||
| Contract notice dates beside each disposition | Partly | ||
| Decommission funded and tracked in the portfolio | |||
| Savings tracked until they leave a budget | |||
| Cost from TBM, licenses from ITAM, coverage from the capability map | Partly |
Who it is for
“Which applications should we keep, and what would retiring the rest save?
“Which assessments are stale, and which apps duplicate each other?
“Does my app’s spend match the decision we made about it?
“Which savings were actually banked, and which are still a promise?
“Which contracts renew on applications we plan to retire?
“What breaks for my teams if this application goes away?
Before you buy
How to get a number instead of a pitch.
1
Good answer · Run-rate released from the ledger, tracked until it leaves a budget.
Bad answer · A license estimate in the business case.
2
Good answer · It is flagged as stale and shown as unknown, not scored as fine.
Bad answer · It keeps its old score until someone notices.
3
Good answer · Interfaces, data, dependent applications and capabilities, with the cost involved.
Bad answer · We find out in the change window.
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