Right-Sized Public Tech field kit

Capital or IT portfolio intake

A comparable intake record for deciding what should enter a roadmap, what needs discovery, and what should stop.

For K-12 operational owners, finance, facilities, procurement, IT, privacy, and security staff

Factual resources last verified August 26, 2026

Use this kit when

The workload is real, but the review path is not.

  • Requests arrive as products or projects instead of outcomes and constraints.
  • Leadership cannot compare mandatory work, maintenance, modernization, and new ideas on the same basis.
  • Security, privacy, integration, staffing, or life-cycle cost appears late in review.

Minimum review packet

Bring evidence, owners, and open questions.

Packet item 1

Problem statement and must-have operational outcome

Packet item 2

Named executive, operational, financial, and technical owners

Packet item 3

Users, affected groups, accessibility needs, and service context

Packet item 4

Existing systems, contracts, assets, data, and known end-of-life dates

Packet item 5

Life-cycle cost range, staffing assumptions, dependencies, schedule, and procurement questions

Packet item 6

Security, privacy, records, integration, and continuity assumptions

Working sequence

A 45-minute review.

  1. Restate the request as an outcome

    Name who needs to do what differently and how the team will know it worked.

  2. Check the current estate

    Identify existing capabilities, contracts, assets, data, and work already under way before adding a new initiative.

  3. Expose the whole cost and dependency shape

    Include implementation, operations, licensing, support, staffing, integrations, security, records, accessibility, and transition-out work.

  4. Cut to the minimum decision

    Choose the smallest discovery, configuration change, scope, or pilot that resolves the next material uncertainty.

  5. Make the portfolio decision

    Record start, sequence, hold, combine, return for evidence, or stop, with an owner and review date.

Leave with

A decision record, not another discussion.

  • Comparable one-page intake record
  • Must-have versus deferrable scope
  • Dependencies and security or privacy assumptions
  • Life-cycle cost and staffing questions
  • A portfolio decision, owner, and next review date

Local verification required

  • Federal capital guidance is a useful discipline, not a legal requirement for local K-12 organizations unless adopted or otherwise applicable.
  • Do not treat a rough cost range as a procurement threshold or purchasing authority.
  • Accessibility, privacy, records, security, finance, and procurement owners should review assumptions before commitment.

Primary sources

What this kit relies on.

Capital Programming Guide, Version 3.1

Office of Management and Budget. Supplement to OMB Circular A-11, 2025. Last verified August 26, 2026.

Disciplined portfolio planning, prioritization, life-cycle cost, risk, acquisition, and performance management.

Digital Services Playbook

U.S. DOGE Service. Current public edition. Last verified August 26, 2026.

User needs, iterative delivery, accountable ownership, security and privacy, and decision-linked measurement.

Commercial disclosure

Related JSTK option: PortfolioDesk

Proposed bounded pilot, not a finished product

JS Technology Solutions publishes this field guide and offers PortfolioDesk. Review the neutral workflow above before considering the product.

When it may fit

  • The organization already has projects and needs a consistent intake and status record.
  • Leadership decisions depend on comparable scope, risk, cost, schedule, and outcome evidence.
  • A single department or portfolio can define a bounded starting point.

When it does not fit

  • The organization first needs to decide who owns portfolio governance.
  • The request is for construction scheduling, accounting, or a full enterprise project-management suite.
  • Teams cannot provide a stable minimum status record or decision cadence.
Visit PortfolioDesk

Cut the next scope.

Turn this review into a bounded working brief.

Open the Scope Cutter