Symptoms: Organizations sometimes make bad decisions. Few organizations, however, stand behind bad decisions the way they do poor technology choices. Perhaps it is the dollars involved, perhaps it is blind faith that, someday, the choice will be proved a good one. A business that chooses a poor location closes it or moves, if it hires poorly, that person is fired quickly. Unfortunately, this is often not the case with technology.

Fixes: IT investments need to be seen as just that – competitive uses of scarce company capital. Businesses need a rigorous method of defining potential project benefits, and comparing those to benefits that might arise from other uses of these funds. They also need to clearly assess risks that threaten these (and other) investments. How likely is the benefit to accrue (especially compared to the likelihood of sales driven by direct marketing investment, for instance). What is the lowest acceptable return? What is the chance this figure will be exceeded? What actions must be taken first to assure performance? And at what point does poor performance of the project merit cancellation? Creating risk-reward matrices and scenarios can significantly reduce the likelihood of ineffectively investing in poor performing IT projects.

Most Commonly Experienced by: All Executive Staff, Boards, and External Advisers

Relevant Services: Strategy, Technology Value Assessment, Management: Interim CIO / vCIO