IT Investment: Making a Business Case
Shows how to present an IT project s expenses in terms of an investment in business practices and processes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS IT Investment: Making a Business Case
Chapter 5: The stakeholders
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
A.A Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)
5.1 Introduction
Stakeholder knowledge and management is central to the preparation of a comprehensive IT investment business case. It is also central to the management of the IT project itself.
Knowing and understanding the requirements and motivation of the IT investment stakeholders is a critical part of preparing a business case for that investment. To achieve this it is important to be able to identify the relevant stakeholders, pressure groups and other interested parties and to assess their interests in terms of how they will react to the change brought about by the intervention or project. This is because if the principal stakeholders are not satisfied, the information system will be regarded as a failure. This view is supported by Oz who pointed out:
If the aggregate expectation of stakeholders from the IS is not met, the organisation is facing an expectation failure. (Oz 1994)
In fact stakeholders and their...
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