Radical Project Management

The State of the Art

The prevailing approach to cost–benefit analysis in business and IT projects reflects all the problems with traditional project management.

In the worst case, no effective cost–benefit analysis is undertaken and there are a series of excuses that are offered as justification. These excuses include a belief that the application of technology automatically leads to benefits or that a senior manager, politician, or client has demanded the system or that a competitor has a similar system or product that must be matched to maintain competitive advantage. In the best case, traditional cost–benefit analysis was nothing more than an exercise in mathematics. The projected cost of the new system is simply offset by a reduction of people, ...