Three CIO Advisory Board Responses to "Managing the Realization of Business Benefits from IT Investments"

Authors

Ted DellaVecchia, Strategic Alignment PartnersFollow
Stuart Scantlebury, The Boston Consulting GroupFollow
John G. Stevenson, JG Stevenson Associates LLCFollow

Abstract

"Ted DellaVecchia, one of three members of the newly formed CIO Advisory Board, to comment on the Peppard et al. article, believes the authors are on the right track in emphasizing business value and the demand side of IT investments, to successfully realize the benefits. Furthermore, he surmises that a framework like the Benefits Dependency Network (BDN) might also be useful in high-level corporate governance—perhaps to assess the strategic alignment of the IT portfolio with the business.Stuart Scantlebury believes that the key message of this article is that benefits need to be managed to be realized. Unfortunately, he notes, they rarely are. Business cases typically describe deliverables and benefits but often do not link the two. He also suggests that project teams expand on the article by offering top management options for projects, based on a benefits management analysis. Then management can choose the option closest to its cost, risk, benefit, and timeframe preferences.John Stevenson disagrees with the authors when they say “IT has no inherent value”—and he explains why. He believes it would be more instructive to split IT spending into two categories—required spending and project spending—and evaluate the two separately. Required spending does have inherent value. Project spending, on the other hand, does need its value tracked and captured."

Recommended Citation

DellaVecchia, Ted; Scantlebury, Stuart; and Stevenson, John G. (2008) "Three CIO Advisory Board Responses to "Managing the Realization of Business Benefits from IT Investments"," MIS Quarterly Executive: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 4.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/misqe/vol6/iss1/4