3.9 Summary

Risk assessment, planning and prioritization, feasibility evaluation and benefits management are key components of the lifecycle evaluation methodology, and, in fact, should be considered/revisited in all phases of that lifecycle. Feasibility evaluation is practised in some form by most organizations, although the evaluation emphasis tends to be financial in nature. The concept of benefits management, that of reviewing the delivery of benefits from an IT investment on an on-going basis, is a relatively new addition to the mix and, when applied effectively, provides a path through the financial bias of feasibility evaluation. Risk assessment, on the other hand, is often overlooked in the evaluation process, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that all IT investments have some level of associated risk that requires assessment and management.

Each of these evaluation components (risk assessment, planning and prioritization, feasibility evaluation and benefits management) have a number of techniques or approaches no one technique in any category will satisfy all situations faced by an organization undertaking an IT investment. Consequently, care must be taken to match the technique best-suited to delivering the business objectives of a particular investment. In other words, potential investments should be reviewed in light of agreed organizational strategy. Moreover, at some point, investments should be reviewed collectively to identify synergies or discontinuities. As we saw in the case of Glaxo Wellcome, its piecemeal review of projects precluded a strategic view of the portfolio as well as obscuring its ability to control costs.