IBM provides software to help businesses to improve value of Technology Investments

In a recent article on MSNBC, IBM announced that they are providing new software to help improve the value of technology investments. Some of the failure statistics identify the failure rates of IT organizations to achieve business goals. This has been the history of software projects. Part of the reason has been that IT organizations have been focused on success of the IT project, even though the project was initiated to meet business goals. Most of the studies of project success have been in large companies (small ones may not have as disastrous results, or the business fails if it does, so there is no company to study). However, many small business software projects fail as well.

My experience has been that the business goals have often been a fuzzy vision versus measurable business goals. When these can translated to project goals, they get very specific and often the business goal gets ignored. In addition, most of the focus goes to implementing the technology and not on meeting the fuzzy business goal. In addition, the business people are not interested in the technology and don't get involved until the HAVE TO. This is often too late as most of the business value comes from business outcomes that need to be delivered by the business. The technology project plays a supporting role.

What is interesting in this announcement is that it comes from the general manager of Managed Business Process Services, not from the software group. The software will help organizations to communicate more effectively to develop the business process, so that the software project can support it.

While small businesses likely can't afford IBM's software, they also don't have as large a problem as large companies do. They can communicate more easily, if they focus on their business processes. This is where the value can be found.

Start with a well defined business outcome. Define how your business process has to change in order to achieve that business outcome. Assess whether the software can help to achieve the business outcome. Measure the project results, not from a technology point of view, but from a business outcome point of view. The technology will get implemented, but it's not at the top of the list.

If you want to cheack out the MSNBC post, you can do it here.