Six It Decisions Your It People Shouldn’t Make
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Top executives often feel uncomfortable making hard choices about information technology. But when they abdicate responsibility, they set their companies up for wasted investments and missed opportunities.
Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make by Jeanne W. Ross and Peter Weill
Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make 10 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications
Reprint R0211F
This article is made available to you with compliments of CMA. Further posting, copying or distributing is copyright infringement. To order more copies go to www.hbr.org or call 800-988-0886.
Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make
The Idea in Brief
Gnashing your teeth because your firm’s hefty IT investments generate weak returns? Most companies are in the same boat. Worse, some suffer disastrous losses owing to mismanaged IT decisions. (Witness companies that sank millions into CRM software—then discovered they didn’t need it.) Why these fiascoes? Many non-IT executives leave key information-technology decisions to IT executives because they don’t feel comfortable enough with technology to manage it in detail. Result? IT executives make choices that inadvertently clash with corporate strategy. IT executives should choose informationtechnology standards, design operations centers, etc. But non-IT executives must ensure that IT choices align with company strategy—by making six crucial strategy and execution decisions.
The Idea in Practice
STRATEGY DECISIONS 1. How much should we spend on IT? Define crystal-clear IT goals. A vague vision (e.g., “providing information to anyone, anytime, anywhere”) can mean millions wasted on chasing elusive benefits. Then set IT funding to achieve
Top executives often feel uncomfortable making hard choices about information technology. But when they abdicate responsibility, they set their companies up for wasted investments and missed opportunities.
Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make by Jeanne W. Ross and Peter Weill
Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make 10 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications
Reprint R0211F
This article is made available to you with compliments of CMA. Further posting, copying or distributing is copyright infringement. To order more copies go to www.hbr.org or call 800-988-0886.
Six IT Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make
The Idea in Brief
Gnashing your teeth because your firm’s hefty IT investments generate weak returns? Most companies are in the same boat. Worse, some suffer disastrous losses owing to mismanaged IT decisions. (Witness companies that sank millions into CRM software—then discovered they didn’t need it.) Why these fiascoes? Many non-IT executives leave key information-technology decisions to IT executives because they don’t feel comfortable enough with technology to manage it in detail. Result? IT executives make choices that inadvertently clash with corporate strategy. IT executives should choose informationtechnology standards, design operations centers, etc. But non-IT executives must ensure that IT choices align with company strategy—by making six crucial strategy and execution decisions.
The Idea in Practice
STRATEGY DECISIONS 1. How much should we spend on IT? Define crystal-clear IT goals. A vague vision (e.g., “providing information to anyone, anytime, anywhere”) can mean millions wasted on chasing elusive benefits. Then set IT funding to achieve