3.11 Practical action guidelines

• View IT expenditures as investments.

• Proactively seek out risks and their sources, then manage those risks throughout the life of the investment.

• Aim to maximize the value delivered out of an IT investment from the resources available.

• Engage in strategic alignment between IT investments and business objectives.

• Prioritize resulting IT investments, also according to objectives.

• Include total IT costs in the budgeting process, including hardware, software, corporate support, data access, training and user costs.

• Match feasibility assessment and lifecycle evaluation techniques to prospective benefit types.

• Integrate the evaluation process across IT lifetime.

• Establish metrics at the strategic level, the business process/operations level, and the customer perspective level.

• Engage in organizational learning and establish metrics which enhance the pursuit of this capability.