Business and software methods are described for cost-effectively optimizing product development portfolios, services development portfolios, and IT (information technology) portfolios, accelerating market entry, and optimizing alignment between product strategy, IT strategy, and brand strategy. Product and service attributes are characterized, categorized, and prioritized with numerical values amenable to statistical analysis of each assessed product development / IT initiative in terms of alignment with ideal customer experience and potential competitive impact relative to the resources and risks required to bring each initiative to market. Methods further include prioritization in the form of applied decision intelligence tools to allow an organization to reach better-informed judgments concerning resource allocation to develop, maintain, or optimize a given product or service portfolio or IT portfolio to improve business performance, increase market impact, and build brand equity.