Delivering benefits is no longer about getting a system signed off

(Who’s minding the shop?)
This blog is an attempt to stimulate discussion and understanding of the balance of responsibility for delivering business benefits from IT investment.
It is now fairly widely recognised that this is not as simple as choosing a system, getting it working and reaping the benefits, but as yet we can call on very few examples of good practice in making it work.

The business argument.
We have no time for discussions about how it all works, we just want a business case and if it gives us the ROI we need with acceptable risks, we want to do it. At least that’s the CFO’s line. In reality, many of these projects begin life as pet projects of the CEO, or other senior manager and it is clear from the outset that the question is not will it work, but make it work.
This is largely an understandable attitude, because businesses must be directed and managers must manage and sometimes the outcome can be a life or death one.

The IT supplier argument.
Be the supplier an in house department or an external supplier, the situation is not hugely different. The supplier tends to confine their responsibilities and activities to making the technology work. Better suppliers provide advice and guidance on rollout, but that is the limit of the activity and there is no responsibility beyond meeting technical requirements. This is wholly understandable, because the supplier has no control over whether the business case was correctly put together, whether the requirements were detailed enough or whether the culture is sufficiently flexible or disciplined to make the new system work and deliver benefits.

So who‘s minding the shop?
Well the answer very often is that nobody is minding the shop. Rarely is anybody in the business equipped to do this job and the suppliers are not getting involved.
The most usual scenario is that the system is delivered and there are issues and misfits that become immediately apparent, then there’s a return to the drawing board and changes are made and a re-launch and things are much better. Often you’ll find a new project with a new name the following year, billed as an upgrade and it finally knocks the thing into shape. Two years late and dramatically over budget the project is complete and nobody ever asks whether it delivered benefits because at this point the business is bus with a whole new set of issues.
The other common scenario is that a consultant is hired to manage the project, he/she is expected to have a project management qualification PMI/Prince etc and have handled one of these type of projects before, maybe even in this industry.
Often the contract is already in place, the product defined and dates and budgets set.
Where does a Consultant go from here?
1. Recommend someone else who needs a bit of experience.
2. Take it on and hope for the best
3. Challenge the client at interview and get passed over as wrong attitude
4. Take it on and then challenge the client later via a robust consulting methodology
5. Challenge the client at interview via a robust consulting methodology
6. Offer to challenge the project’s soundness for a reasonable fee and provide a dispassionate report.

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