Review of Making Technology Investments Profitable

In their book Making Technology Investments Profitable: ROI Road Map to Better Business Cases, Jack M. Keen and Bonnie Digrius make the case for business cases, walk through the process of creating a business case, provide insights for finding and calculating value, and describe the business processes of project selection and benefits tracking.

Fifty percent of IT projects, according to Keen and Digrius, begin without any ROI analysis. And most of the rest begin with seriously deficient ROI analysis. It is this deficiency, Keen and Digrius argue, that is the root cause of most project failures such as scope creep to cost overruns, which are often blamed on project teams.

Keen and Digrius emphasize that business cases exist within the business processes of project selection and benefits tracking, both of which depend upon business cases and both assure that business cases provide their full value to the organization. The book contains useful audit surveys to determine the maturing of these processes in an organization.

While the book itself is full of good advice, I’m less than satisfied with the sample business case in the appendix. Perhaps it’s a matter of style, but I found its presentation hard to follow and the rationale behind the value calculations a bit too abbreviated.