Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IS & IT Investments

Chapter 4. Establishing the Why, What and How

This chapter introduces and describes the use of some of the tools and frameworks that enable the key questions posed in Chapters 2 and 3 to be answered for a particular investment. Those questions are: why is the investment being made; what types of benefit is the organization expecting to achieve; and how can a combination of business changes and IT deliver those benefits?

The frameworks and tools presented in this, and the following two chapters, are described in terms of their use in completing the first two stages of the process shown in Figure 3.3, that is, in identifying and structuring the benefits of a particular investment and the preparation of a benefits plan and business case. However, in the execution or implementation phase of the project (stage three in Figure 3.3), the knowledge provided from the use of the tools and frameworks should be used to guide the project management, systems development and change management activities, as described in Chapter 3. The progress of the project should be reviewed against the results of this initial analysis to determine the steps to be taken to address any discrepancies. This may either require additional effort applied to the business changes that were identified, or require the analysis to be revisited in light of any unexpected or emergent constraints. In a similar way, the information produced and documented using these techniques will provide the baseline against which to undertake ...