Managing the Realization of Business Benefits from IT Investments

With their information technology (IT) investments, most organizations focus on the implementation of technology not on the realization of expected business benefits. Consequently, benefits are not forthcoming despite projects being considered a technical success. This failure to realize benefits is primarily due to methods and tools that emphasize improving the supply-side of IT delivery, including the use of outsourcing. No IT investment is ever just about technology. Drawing on over 10 years of research that has studied how organizations improve the return on the investment they make in IT, this paper presents an approach which enables managers to identify, plan for and manage the delivery of benefits. This approach implies new ways of working between IT professionals and business managers that complement the best practices in delivering IT solutions, but that engage business managers in a way that enables them to apply their collective knowledge to creating business value from IT enabled change.