IT Prioritization
Discussion with Steering Committee
Ours is not a new or unique problem
IT
What investments should we fund? How should we compare the alternatives for
ranking? How should we work the trade offs?
Work (what we are going to do?) Resources (what we have to do it with?) Time lines (how long can we wait to have it done?)
Almost every company struggles with:
I have three questions when someone comes to me with a request to spend money on systems:
What do you want to change and what is it worth? Why do we need to invest in systems to get it?
Can’t we change business policy, processes, rules etc. How will you be able to show me that you got the
benefits you were going for?
One of my favorite CEO’s said:
His view was that the requestor should be able to answer those business questions before starting the process
Value Tangible – things that can be measured
Revenue enhancement / ROI / Cost saving / Cost Avoidance Regulatory / statutory requirement Linkage to or support of strategic initiatives which have value
Intangible Improved customer service (could be tangible) Company image Improved market visibility Employee satisfaction (again could be tangible) Technical obsolescence
Risks – relative to what the company / firm has done Size
Sheer volume of requirements Number of people needed to get it done Amount of data or technology
Complexity Organizational impact (How cross functional, cross business, cross
geography) Technical (plumbing and wiring, service level requirements) Functional (how complex is are the business processes and rules)
Novelty Functional (have we ever done this before, how different is it from
what we have done) Technology
Companies that have a working priority system balance value and risk:
Low Hanging
FruitManage Carefully
Fill in Avoid
Valu
e
Risk
Low
Low
High
High
Even sophisticated companies have trouble getting it right
Priority Process
IT Provisioning Process
Ideas and Work Request
From Anywhere
Time & $
NegotiationProcess
Plan
Governance IT
The first trick is to get the opportunities profiled right Scope defined Benefits and risks outlined Enough challenge to make sure the opportunities are valid and the
benefits will happen – Make the requester defend The second is to get good estimates on cost, schedule and
IT assures that it can deliver as promised IT has to understand its ability to commit resources IT has to be pretty good at sizing IT has to have resource planning processes which control
assignments and availability The third is to have variable resourcing capabilities
Staff augmentation and / or outsourced project delivery Tight linkage with IT
Some best practice thougths
At the end-of-the-day it needs to be business leadership not IT that decides priority and pace
Our current Project Scope document is pretty light
Sponsor: <Indicate the sponsor for this project. Include any relevant customer, department/product, or business unit information>
Product/Technical Contact: <Indicate a technical resource for the project. This will be the point of contact for IT questions>
Project Description: <This section should contain a high level description of the project's goal>
Justification: (Must be completed for Project Prioritization) <This section should describe the benefits of the implementation of this project in terms of dollars or time saved. (Return on Investment)>
Target Deadlines: <Identify any mandatory completion dates, such as set forth by a governmental regulatory agency>
Position/Areas Impacted: <This section should list any companies, products, and/or areas that will be impacted by the proposed changes. This will be used to provide a guideline for requesting customer approval of the project>
Company Branch Product Subline State
We need to develop a rating and weighting system for scoring
Value Tangible – things that can be
measured Revenue enhancement / ROI / Cost
saving / Cost Avoidance Regulatory / statutory requirement Linkage to or support of strategic
initiatives which have value Intangible
Improved customer service (could be tangible)
Company image Improved market visibility Employee satisfaction (again could
be tangible) Technical obsolescence
Risks Size
Sheer volume of requirements Number of people needed to get it done Amount of data or technology
Complexity Organizational impact (How cross
functional, cross business, cross geography)
Technical (plumbing and wiring, service level requirements)
Functional (how complex is are the business processes and rules)
Novelty Functional (have we ever done this
before, how different is it from what we have done)
Technology
One of the key challenges will be to balance the number of risky projects with the need to get things done
Resource management Who is capable to work on what… What is the future forecast of availability If there is slippage or change for any given project, what is the
impact on the portfolio… Estimation
How much effort will be required to do the project How does this translate to elapsed time (see above)
Project management How do we know that a project is on track How do we manage change and its impact on other projects
Sourcing How do we work with other IT groups and outsiders to get the job
done the right way
IT has to develop capabilities and put practices in place
