Better Ideas, Better Projects

by Robert J. Benson

Anecdote 1: We were working with a large consumer financial services company -- the kind of company that depends very heavily on IT both for back-office processing and front-office product and service support. Its IT spending profile was typical of such a company: of $75 million in IT spending, roughly 25% was for new development projects, with the rest spent on maintenance and incremental enhancement of existing systems. The company had an effective prioritization practice for new projects but did little to examine the business impact of the $50+ million of maintenance and enhancement activities.