Important Contributions to the Business Value Discussion

by Glen B. Alleman

Aligning IT execution with IT strategy means knowing the value projects bring to the table. This value has to be measured in some way meaningful to those providing the funding or consuming the benefits. The units of measure for both the cost and benefits is usually in dollars or some percentage of dollars. The physical prioritization of suggested projects starts with a "paired comparison" analysis rather than a linear ranking. The linear approach falsely sorts the projects by failing to distinguish between real need and perceived need. After sorting the projects using this approach, they then need to connected to their cost. With the sorted priority and cost, the question can then be asked: "how does this collection of project support the IT strategy?" This strategy doesn't have to be sophisticated, but it does have to define some sort of business value. The conversation of "why are we doing this" is a starting point for the business value discussion.